Dr Christine Anscombe became the chair of the training commission (IUT) of the International Union of Leather Technologists and Chemists Societies (IULTCS) at the end of 2024. In this interview she outlines her hopes for the future of leather education across the globe.

How would you sum up the training and education you received in preparation for your career in the leather industry?

I had no family connection to the leather industry. At school, when I was 14, we went to a careers exhibition. I came back with a leaflet from Nene College, which was the predecessor of what became the Institute for Creative Leather Technologies (ICLT) at the University of Northampton. My school was in Northamptonshire but our careers teacher had never heard of the leather course at Nene College and tried to convince me to do something else. But the idea stayed with me and I applied.

I think I was lucky to be accepted because I didn’t do as well as expected in the exams at the end of high school. I received a lot of help from the course’s director, Peter Ellement. It wasn’t a degree course in those days. The qualification we received at the end was called a Higher National Diploma, a vocational higher education qualification. I did that from 1982 until 1984. I was the only woman in my year group and one of only two students from the UK in a group that had people of 30 different nationalities. I loved that. It showed that in the leather industry there were jobs everywhere in the world. Because I had no family connection to any tannery, I could go anywhere and this appealed to me very much.

There was a disadvantage too. Everyone else had had plenty of work experience on the tannery floor and I had none. But the course was nine-to-five every day, with lots of practical and lab work, as well as the theoretical side. It did prepare you to come out and be immediately useful to someone; I was confident I would be able to do that. 

What are the highlights of what you were able to do with that education on entering the world of work?

At the end of the course, I received four job offers: one in New Zealand, two in Italy and one in the UK, which was at Carr Tanning, in the Cotswolds. A whole level of managers were ready to retire and the company had no succession plan in place. It took me on and I was happy to go. Not long after, I did travel, all the way to Australia, where I worked for Packer Leather. I went back and forth between Australia and the UK for a while and had my two children. When I went back to full-time work it was at BLC Leather Technology Centre in Northampton. I stayed there for 11 years and ended up running training. It was there I met my friend and colleague Amanda Michel, who died in 2017. Together, Amanda and I set up our own leather training and consultancy business, Leather Wise. The projects we worked on included helping to design a national vocational qualification in leather. We also helped leathergoods brand Mulberry run its in-house apprenticeship programme. Later, Amanda and I wrote material for the master’s course that the ICLT offered. I maintained a link to the University of Northampton and became a member of its technical liaison group. The university awarded me an honorary doctorate in 2016. In 2009, I left Leather Wise and moved to work full time at research and testing organisation, SATRA. I still work there today and am assistant director for marketing. The International Union of Leather Technologists and Chemists Societies (IULTCS) appointed me as chair of its training commission, the IUT, at the end of 2024.

What are the major changes that have taken place in recent years in leather education and access to it?

Reutlingen and Northampton have been big losses. The Lederinstitut Gerberschule Reutlingen in Germany closed in 2011. Teaching of leather courses at the University of Northampton’s ICLT ended in summer 2025. There are other educational options, of course. The thing is, though, that IULTCS doesn’t know exactly what is available now, globally, and who is providing what. We know that there are courses in Turkey, Spain and other countries and that some institutions are delivering courses in English to make them accessible for international students. We want to work out how best to support and promote these programmes and bring more young people to them. My ties to Northampton are important to me and I don’t like to be too critical. The ICLT was exceptional in what it delivered, but was it what the industry needed? In the UK, at least, we’ve become hung up on everybody needing to go to university and earn a degree. Universities’ funding relies on that. But it doesn’t suit everybody. I think we need to make a broader range of teaching materials available to people who want to learn about leather, with wide access to them. It all needs to be more flexible. The choices have not been diverse enough over the years.

Has the leather industry contributed to this lack of flexibility?

There have been big changes in the industry as well as in education, and that’s important. So much comes down to money. Companies’ purse strings are becoming tighter, and training and education are among the first things to be cut. It’s so short-sighted. There has been an expectation among many companies that they should be able to pull candidates from educational institutions at the end of courses, to take advantage of the end product, but without contributing too much to the process that creates that end product. There are exceptions; there are companies that do invest. When the decision came to close Northampton’s ICLT, I was part of an informal group called Supporters of Leather Education and Science, or SOLES. We wanted to see what people in the industry thought about this and to see if there was any chance of saving ICLT. It developed at one point into a network of more than 100 people from 70 organisations. What has come out of this, to my mind, is a clear message that the industry needs flexible, modular, practical training in leather technology. And the practical element may be the biggest challenge. A lot of practical leather education is being delivered by chemical companies now. They are filling a gap.

In your opinion, what have these changes in education provision meant for the industry?

The consequences have not hit yet. Unless we pass all this knowledge on, a time will come when we no longer have people who understand the process of making leather well enough. Unless we have people who do understand it well, we won’t have innovation. Basic tanning is well documented; you can learn to make a piece of leather, but we need more than that. In my opinion, the biggest threat will be that an increase in demand for biomaterials could mean that, in the future, a very good alternative to leather will come along and do the job even better than leather. We will still have meat and waste from meat. A biomaterials company may find a way of using that waste better than we can, using the collagen in a different way. If you lose education, you lose the people who will be able to challenge that.

IULTCS has specified cultivating new generations of leather scientists and professionals as one of its priorities. How will it go about achieving this? What support from the wider industry will IULTCS be able to call on for this?

Perhaps the teaching that is in place across the world could be more formalised, with a global curriculum. Perhaps IULTCS, as a global body, could develop a global package that could sit under the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). But we need to identify what is there now before we invent new things. My instinct is that we don’t need to keep reinventing the wheel. We still have people with deep knowledge of the industry. We also have good material available in a variety of formats. We can develop this into an industry package and that could lead to a professional qualification, perhaps even an IULTCS qualification. But we will need to have someone drive it properly and we will need industry buy-in.

It is difficult to avoid making a connection between a lack of leadership and of common purpose in the global leather sector and the impression many have today that the industry receives unfair treatment from legislators and many consumer product brands. What motivates you to keep working and travelling to share a positive message about the industry? What gives you hope for the future?

One huge positive is the people we have in the industry and the relationships leather people are able to form. In this industry, competitors can talk to one another and enjoy each other’s company. This is something I have not observed in other industries. Leather people are very passionate about the material. This is what will save the industry. You reach a point at which you have to collaborate and we have reached that point in leather now. People must recognise the need to share knowledge and realise that this will not affect their ability to compete. That is where the future lies and it is a future I am positive about. I am thankful that I am in this industry. It has given me a career that I have loved.

Chair of the training commission of the International Union of Leather Technologists and Chemists Societies, Dr Christine Anscombe.
Credit: SATRA

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