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Browse a handpicked selection of World Leather articles, thought provoking topics ranging from fast fashion to zero waste are all here. Premium + and World Leather subscribers can delve deeper, with access to the industry beating archive of over 1,400 World Leather technical papers in the archive.

Act of faith

Later this year, the European Commission will publish a new Circular Economy Act. Meanwhile, China’s most recent Five-Year Plan suggests that a shift to circular models of production and consumption... Free Content

Carbon-neutral leather is here
A new programme of data collection and supply chain collaboration can ...
Foam from home
SLG has established a new biofoam division to help make the fullest...
Raw material quest
Leather’s appeal remains strong for Turkey’s footwear industry, in...
No shortcuts
The furniture sector is an important piece in the Made In Italy...
Economic pain can spur circularity
Even in the face of a tough trading environment, some brands have...

44 items found. Showing items 1 to 10.

13 May 2026

Lasting trend

Beyond Beyoncé’s influence, the western boot was popular long before her 2024 album Cowboy Carter. An advance look at autumn-winter 2026-2027 collections at Micam in Milan in February suggests the trend will...

06 May 2026

Heroes amid the chaos

Haiti-based Deux Mains shows how entrepreneurial spirit and determination can combine to support a community ravaged by disaster and poverty. Founder Julie Colombino-Billingham tells World Leather about a new...

29 April 2026

Beamhouse magic

The benefits that have accrued from the JBS Kind Leather initiative since its launch in 2019 are far-reaching.

22 April 2026

State of flux

In a world in which nothing stays the same for very long, leather is versatile enough to reflect a huge range of moods, but durable enough to provide beauty and value that last.

15 April 2026

Government support for training and recruitment

An agreement between the Italian government and the country’s leathergoods and footwear sectors to boost their search for new talent is now in place.

25 March 2026

A tale of two summits

Identical twins climbed Mera Peak wearing two eras of mountaineering kit: one in cutting-edge technical apparel, the other in a meticulous replica of George Mallory’s 1924 gear. Crockett & Jones stepped up to...

18 March 2026

Art in small spaces

After studying medicine for years, Chukwuma Ekwerike concluded that there is great beauty in the human form. He now uses his design talent to express his love for the patterns he first saw in his anatomy...

11 March 2026

Food for thought

A new digital platform for informing, training and supporting professional development in the circular economy is on the way. Improvements will come through better connections between leather and agri-food.

03 March 2026

The fruits of data

Efforts to collect supply chain and production data have begun to yield transparency, traceability and sustainability rewards for companies in the leather industry.

24 February 2026

Fair share

Leather’s circularity credentials deserve full recognition in the EU’s new Circular Economy Act. And if circularity becomes a requirement for winning public procurement contracts, rich rewards are on offer.

06 January 2026

Complex journey to biocircularity

After decades of looking after Asian manufacturing for big brands, David Solk and Irmi Kreuzer ploughed their resources and experience into creating a shoe in which every element can decompose. Initially...

23 December 2025

Unwanted hides will go far

For ten years, worker-owned cooperative Pingree Detroit has been sourcing surplus leather and making it into handmade shoes and accessories.

16 December 2025

Handmade differences

A start-up Seoul-based footwear brand is attracting attention in Europe as a result of its ability to offer huge versatility while staying true to traditional, artisan skills and the use of high-quality...

03 December 2025

Credible pathways

Non-profit organisation the Institute for Data Integrity is being launched because transparent data, and analysis of that data, are now a necessity for the global leather industry.

26 November 2025

Natural attraction

Leather industry representatives are working increasingly closely with their counterparts in sectors such as wool, silk, cotton and cashmere. A united voice from suppliers of different natural fibres stands a...

18 November 2025

EUDR ups and downs

Hopes in the leather industry in September of at least a temporary reprieve on EUDR were dashed in October. The European Commission has published a document insisting that the regulation will come into...

05 November 2025

Luxury’s pivotal moment?

As luxury sales dip, brands should find a way to monetise resale channels without impacting brand value, according to a study. A new cross-party congressional group in the US hopes to boost the sector, too.

28 October 2025

Water-positive

Luxury group Kering has released the first details of a new water strategy.

21 October 2025

Record in the bag

An original prototype of the Hermès Birkin bag has become the most expensive handbag ever to sell at auction.

30 September 2025

Still no solution to plastic pollution

An intergovernmental committee has failed, once again, to agree a treaty on ending plastic pollution. A consumer backlash seems inevitable. In response, leather has a chance to become the material of choice...

23 September 2025

Brands must buy better

After falls in the volume and value of leather that Italian tanners produced in 2024, the president of national industry body UNIC, Fabrizio Nuti, has offered his colleagues reasons for sticking with their...

17 September 2025

Added value

An article we published five years ago put at 2000% the figure for the added value that tanners and leathergoods manufacturers can give to hides. As this follow-up article shows, if you put the material in the ...

12 August 2025

Behind the leather golf glove

The concept of the circular economy is gaining momentum across a range of industries, and the production of leather for golf gloves offers a clear example of how this thinking translates into practice.

05 August 2025

Brave decisions

It is 40 years since Catalan small-skin tanning group Curtidos Codina recognised the importance of Brazil as a source of its main raw material and set up its own full-service tannery in the South American...

29 July 2025

ECCO’s strength is also its weakness

The footwear and leather group is focusing on resuming operations after a fire destroyed its wet-end processing facility in the Netherlands.

22 July 2025

Data specialists step in

Technology companies that have been down the traceability path before with the seafood sector have now launched an initiative for leather.

16 July 2025

Nothing to Hide: a decade of truth-telling

Cited by companies including Puma, which used the platform as a resource when fact-checking leather statistics, we celebrate 10 years since World Leather’s publisher launched the platform to dispel myths and...

08 July 2025

A perfect fit

Industry body COTANCE organised an event at EU Green Week 2025 to present to an influential audience leather’s credentials for earning recognition as the circular economy’s dream product.

24 June 2025

Fast-fashion thinking damages durability debate

A group that has led lengthy discussions on what constitutes product durability has chosen to ignore fact-based arguments that favour leather and other natural materials.

17 June 2025

SMEs weigh data burden

Some of the world’s most beautiful shoes are made by highly skilled artisans in small workshops.

10 June 2025

Bad for goods

This second article on the 2025 trade crisis focuses on finished product and shows that companies and consumers everywhere, including the US, will feel pain.

03 June 2025

Fund raises hopes as well as money

An initiative that WWF has launched aims to raise an initial $10 million to help fund deforestation-free sourcing of hides. It says this will just be the start.

28 May 2025

Liberation Day blues

April 2025 was a cruel month of tariffs, counter-measures, trade tensions and uncertainty.

13 May 2025

Change takes time

Carlo Briccola is president of the young business leaders’ group at Italy’s main representative body for the fashion sector, Confindustria Moda Accessori.

06 May 2025

Fix up, look sharp

The team behind Circulo, a software platform connecting brand and repairers, has published a white paper that sets out the business case for circular services. Fashion brands must find new ways to strengthen...

29 April 2025

Skills celebration

Luxury automotive company Rolls-Royce Motors celebrates its successful apprenticeship programme as an essential component of efforts to build up the skilled workforce it will need in the future.

23 April 2025

A seat at the table

Puma has enlisted ‘youth voices’ and influencers to explore questions surrounding real leather versus its alternatives – and uses our Nothing to Hide website to inform the debate.

15 April 2025

Clean and green

A new initiative that the European Commission calls its Clean Industrial Deal should strengthen the leather sector’s claims that it deserves to remain part of the manufacturing panorama.

09 April 2025

France’s future

The president of Alliance France Cuir confirms that changes in farming in France may have wide-ranging consequences for the whole of the leather sector there.

01 April 2025

Where things come from

Detailed work on traceability that Tapestry has been carrying out since 2019 could help companies in different parts of the supply chain respond to regulatory requirements, including EUDR.

25 March 2025

Life and Seoul

Leathergoods start-ups from Seoul caught the eye at the September edition of Mipel in Milan. Six of them travelled to Italy for the occasion, but the South Korean capital is home to thousands more.

18 March 2025

Put it down to experience

According to expert analyst Claudia D’Arpizio, luxury leathergoods brands will do well to emphasise the “emotional experience” involved in owning beautiful products made from the most circular material in the...

11 March 2025

Good COP, bad COP

COP16 and COP29 – Conference of the Parties to the United Nations conventions on biodiversity and climate change – highlighted differences of opinion on accountability and financing and were generally thought...

04 March 2025

Blame it on the leathergoods

After disappointing results, London-based luxury brand Burberry has decided that the best way to turn its fortunes around is to shine far less limelight on leather.

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Act of faith