The leather dyeing process is what adds the wonderful colour to a finished leather design. This can be anything from the browns and blacks associated with leather to bright, bold colours. Each dye is meticulously formulated using a highly accurate computer program, without which it would be impossible to get a consistent colour each time. The actual dyeing process can be incredibly lengthy with hides needing to be added to a large drum along with their chosen dye for a long period of time to ensure the dye takes. After around 8 hours a cutting should be taken to ensure that the dye has completely saturated the hide. Otherwise, the leather will look patchy. Afterwards the leather needs to be rinsed thoroughly to remove any residual dye or chemicals. Once rinsed the hide should be dried entirely.
FINISHING
When the dyeing process is complete, the last stage in the leather-making is the finishing. This is the stage where the leather will be worked to ensure that it has the supple, flexible nature that is so desired in leather as well as the glossy finish. A finish that not only protects the surface but also one which can be easier to clean. This stage would be skipped if a naked leather was desired. To soften the leather a machine called a staker is used where the leather is both stretched and lots of natural oils will be added to lubricate the fabric. This stretching motion also tightens the pore structure of the leather. This helps create a higher quality finish that is desirable to consumers.
The final touch
The final touch is to apply a finishing spray on the leather. What the finishing spray is will depend on the desired finish of the leather. For instance, a coat of acrylic can be added for a patent leather finish, mother of pearl can be added to give a pearlescent finish and at this stage leather can be embossed with patterns. On a large-scale production, the leather will be hung and moved through the chosen spray line before being put into an oven to be cured. Once finished the leather can be stacked to prevent the leather getting creased and then it can be sent off ready to be used in making leather products. Full grain leathers, however, will skip this stage as it’s not needed. Instead, this leather will go through an ironing process, which will use varying degrees of pressure and heat until the desired sheen is obtained.
Last step
The last stage of the process will be a quality check to ensure the leather has the correct colour and that there are no tears or anomalies in the leather. From here the leather can be rolled and shipped ready to be turned into quality luggage, handbags or any other leather accessory.
This technique is the one that still today, after many years, our craftsmen continue to use to guarantee the wonderful colour of the models, which has always distinguished our market. Visit our online store and stay tuned for more industry information.
Florence is well known as the birthplace of Renaissance art and humanist thinking but it was the economic power it wielded that made it possible for culture to flourish. At the foundations of the city’s economic success lay the “Arti” that worked kind of like unions in protecting workers and the trade secrets that would make Florentine craftsmanship (especially fabrics and leather) known throughout Europe. The Arte dei Cuoiai, or the leather-workers guild, was created in 1282 but it wasn’t until the more recent centuries that leather began to take a centre stage as one of the items that embody Italian craftsmanship and design.Today we want to speak about this, especially about the art of tanning (leather). We want to focus on how florentines manage these techniques and how they transform the raw hide into what is known as leather.
Tanning process in leather industry
According with Wikipedia “Tanning is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed.”
Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin, making it more durable and less susceptible to decomposition, and colouring.
Before tanning, the skins are dehaired, degreased, desalted, and soaked in water over a period of six hours to two days. Historically this process was considered a noxious or “odoriferous trade” and relegated to the outskirts of town.
Historically, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name, derived from the bark of certain trees. An alternative method, developed in the 1800s, is chrome tanning, where chromium salts are used instead of natural tannins.
The tanning process in the leather industry
What tanning process did the leather go through?
Tanning is the most important part of the leather making process. It transforms the raw hide into what is known as leather. This process stabilises the leather so it can’t decompose, soak up water or shrink. There are two main ways to do this.
Chrome Tanning / mineral tanning: Processing the hide in a mix of acids, chemicals, and salts. This can take 3-24 hours. Most of the leather around the world has undergone chrome tanning.
Vegetable Tanning: This can also be called natural leather or bio leather (although these terms are kind of thrown around to mean whatever the seller wants). This is the traditional tanning method that soaks the hides in vats of water mixed with natural vegetable solutions made from the bark, roots and leaves of numerous plant sources such as oak, spruce, chestnut, mimosa, and many others. This process takes many weeks. This is the closest to the traditional tanning methods and the best for the environment.
Our infallible method has been handed down for centuries, which is why Florentine art is now known throughout the world and together with its products. Buying genuine leather accessories means giving value to tradition. Come and visit our online store.
You may be familiar with the best sustainable clothing brands, but where do you turn to when shopping for eco-conscious accessories? Knowing where to head for your next bag purchase is just as important when wanting to build up a sustainable wardrobe, whether you’re in the market for a summery straw tote, a classic faux-leather cross-body or an elegant bucket bag.
Researching a brand properly – understanding its process and materials used – is vital for making greener choices when it comes to our wardrobes.
Florence Leather Market: shop consciously
More than 30 percent of unwanted clothes end up in landfill every year, meaning our planet gets damaged as a result. It equates to around £140 million worth of used, but still wearable clothing, brought thrown away. That’s why it’s so important, now more than ever, to shop consciously. For those of you trying to spend in a more ethical and sustainable manner, but don’t know where to start, we’ve rounded up 5 of our favourite handbags that all operate using eco-friendly processes.
Invest in our Severa
Florence Leather Market hopes for a world where consumers know where their products were made and by whom. Our brand provides international market access, fair trade wages, and safe working conditions for its entire team, who, in turn, create beautiful, timeless staples. This collection of handmade leather handbags are crafted in Italy and are both stylish and sturdy, so you’re sure to stand out wherever you carry your bag. Our Severa is a handbag handcrafted in Italy. The bag is created using genuine calfskin, tanned and worked in Florentine laboratories.
Greta is our philosophy
Florence leather Market emphasises how important it is for us to make the right choices, to deliver high-quality products whilst respecting its workers and the planet. The brand bases production on local crafts and uses only services of regional producers and suppliers, using Italian, tanned leather. Above all else, Florence Leather Market represents what it means to be sustainable in fashion today, by creating timeless pieces to invest in now and love for a lifetime. Greta has mastered the philosophy of timeless elegance and future-forward fashion. The leather bag is ethically made by artisans who are paid fair wages in safe factories. Gretais a bag/ backpack consisting of two large internal compartments, a pocket for coins and a pocket for smartphones. The accessory is available in many different colors, realizated with an eco-sustainable dyeing process.
Clelia, a genuine bag
When making leather goods, the material is sourced from hides that would have been otherwise discarded, using less energy than it takes to create vegan leather. The Clelia genuine leather bag is a compact and casual chic bag realised by a sustainable process. The accessory is characterized by calfskin embellished with original details, which do not go unnoticed. We know that our choices have an impact on the environment around us. The brand works to ease its own environmental footprint by sourcing sustainable materials, implementing ethical production practices and investing in styles that stand the test of time.
If you’re looking to update more of your wardrobe, check out our fair trade accessory guide, and read our article on “how to shop more sustainable” .
Ancient dyes: how were the fabrics coloured in the past?
Dyeing is an ancient art, born in India around the 30th century BC, when spices began to be used, after careful and careful processing, to dye fabrics. From those years to today, countless advances have been made: we have gone from natural colours applicable only to natural fabrics, such as linen, cotton and silk, to chemical dyes that can be used, in the form of a liquid bath – the dyes are dissolved in the water in which the tissues are immersed.
But how has the practice of dyeing changed over time? And what was used to colour the fabrics? In this article we retrace the history of ancient dyes, looking at natural products that have been, over the years, the protagonists of one of the most fascinating processes.
The history of ancient dyes
To reconstruct in detail the history of ancient dyes is an almost impossible operation that would require the chemical analysis of the ragged shreds of tissue that have come down to us: what we know is that, at least initially, among the Greeks, The Romans and the Phoenicians, were used only the primary colors in their clearest shade because it was not yet known the way to give life to the intermediate or more tenuous colors.
Among the first colors that we can clearly identify is the purple of Tyre, one of the pigments that has imprinted its footprint on the history of humanity: mainly employed by the Phoenicians, the great dyers of the fifteenth century BC. It was a bright and expensive shade of red, so much so that it became the symbol of aristocrats and Roman emperors. To obtain the purple of Tyre a long and detailed procedure was necessary: the spiny moray eel was put to macerate in lead tubs filled with abundant salted water, so as to obtain a liquid tending to yellow which, After being exposed to the sun it assumed the traditional and vivid purple color. The cost of Tyre’s purple was too high, so much so that, over the years, it fell into disuse, replaced by cheap imitations, such as the mauve color produced at Perkin thanks to a synthetic process.
The other color of extreme value was the Oltremare di Tiro, born from a procedure similar to that required for the production of the purple of Tiro: there was need, however, of two different molluscs, the first that gave the red color and the second that gave the fabric a unique bluish shade.
Insects, molluscs, plants and flowers were, in a similar way to the above, the protagonists of the history of the tincture of the Greeks and the Romans. It seems, among other things, that they possessed a not too limited range of colors, including yellow, blue, blue and red in addition to the traditional black and white. For the production of the red color the Romans used a bath of color extracted from an insect, the cochineal. All in all, however, the dyeing techniques and pigments used remained a real secret for centuries. It is enough to think that the Chinese imperial court demanded that no one should know the secrets of this refined and precious art.
The art of dyeing in Italy
After the Crusades, the art of dyeing fabrics finally arrived in Italy: in Florence in 1400 there were over 200 dyeing workshops. The first great commercial traffics delivered, then, in Italy rudimentary chemical substances, useful to obtain new colors and more and more sought, and machinery gradually more and more to the vanguard. The synthetic colors appeared, from the outset, as cheaper, cheaper and resistant, which is why they did not take too long before replacing natural pigments. At the time, by the way, the effects of artificial colours on the environment were completely ignored, and their spread completely overwhelmed Europe first and then the whole world.
Today the art of ancient natural dyes is increasingly recovered by small local companies in which the skilled artisans, in compliance with an all-Italian tradition, give new life, after centuries, to those natural processes of pigment extraction from flowers and plants. Recovering the ancient techniques means bringing back to the market, now dominated by clothes and colors standardized and devoid of soul, give a unique character and emotion to unique and inimitable clothes and accessories that, thanks to a coloring craft, acquire a value without price. The history of Made in Italy leather goods, based in Florence, is combined with the long tradition of dyeing, between secrets and innovation, giving life to clothes and accessories that no one will resist.
Italy, in addition to having a rich artistic, architectural, and cultural heritage, is celebrated all over the world, also for handicrafts, representing one of the strengths of the national economy.
Among the Italian regions, the most appreciated for its ancient craft tradition, especially at international level, is Tuscany. In this region, in fact, you can still admire the historic workshops of master craftsmen, where you can see how their skilled hands created these wonderful products.
Between tradition and innovation, Tuscan craftsmanship is considered one of the most prestigious and destined to remain for a long time. Its products, in fact, have always been considered of excellent quality and unique.
The masters of craftsmanship, also protagonists of the many exhibitions in the Tuscan territory, range from ceramics to iron, from paper to glass, from textiles to leather goods.
Handicraft products in leather and eco-leather
In Tuscany there are many shops dedicated to leather and leather processing, particularly appreciated to produce suitcases and briefcases, wallets, belts, and bags. In addition, there are many schools dedicated to leather processing, which create high quality craftsmen.
The method of manufacturing leather goods has very ancient origins. It dates back, in fact, to the distant 1200, through the development of the two very sophisticated techniques so-called tanning and plugging by hand. Over time, the art of tanning has been enriched with increasingly innovative and sophisticated techniques, which have made the leather accessory a high-quality product.
Methods of stitching the skin
Leather products are very special especially for their visible seams. These, however, can be ruined with the passage of time, due to rubbing or weathering, leading to the breaking of the wire, even the best. The sewing technique used could however slow down this process.
Even the skin can be sewn either by machine or by hand. It is obvious that a hand-sewn product, in addition to having a higher price, certainly has a higher value than a machine sewn, since it is made directly by a craftsman. The hand stitching also makes the leather product more durable over time.
Machine-stitching
This sewing method is the best known. Two wires are used: one is carried over by the needle and the other is carried under the so-called fuse. In this way it is possible to also use two threads having two different colors, thus making the seam more particular and, maybe, adapting the colors to the type of leather that you are working with.
It is a much faster and cheaper method of hand stitching, as it allows to shorten the processing time of the products, thus increasing the quantities.
Hand-stitching
The hand stitching, instead, uses a single thread with two needles, which pass in the same hole from the two sides of the skin, crossing at the centre.
The holes in which the two needles pass are, of course, made before their passage, otherwise it would be too difficult to pierce the skin only with the needle. To make them, similar tools are used to shape a fork with the teeth equally distant from each other, on which a hammer is struck. Another technique to puncture the skin, is to mark the distance between a point and the other through the so-called cauldron and, subsequently, make the holes with a single hand awl, called lesina.
In hand stitching, moreover, is often used which, lubricating the wire, makes this technique easier. Beeswax, however, not only facilitates stitching, but also helps to protect the wire from moisture and atmospheric agents, in addition to consolidating it to the skin. This allows any seam made in this way to resist for a long time.
It is easy to notice how this is a technique that makes the seam much more robust and safer than the one made by machine.
Florence Leather Market
The Florence Leather Market is one of the leading companies in the sale of high quality Made in Italy leather products, thanks to its skilled artisans who make every item by hand. It also offers a luxury product at a not too excessive price.
The raw material for the Florence Leather Market is fundamental, as it considers it the basis for making quality products. In fact, the product is made with the best Italian leather. The selected leather is worked in a natural way making the final product soft to the touch. The leather object is sewn by hand by the artisans of the workshop of Florence with very precise sewing techniques.
Within its collection you can find several genuine leather items such as bags, clutches, backpacks, belts, and wallets.
Leather bags are suitable for all occasions, every single detail is defined to make the article fashionable and practical. The original and practical leather backpacks combine elegance with casual. The clutches are very appreciated by women who need to use a small bag for special events. Belts and wallets have a well-defined seam and, thanks to the natural leather processing, are soft and practical.
The line of Messenger bags deserves special attention. They are large, comfortable, and practical bags with adjustable shoulder straps. Particularly roomy and durable, they are perfect for the office, since you can insert numerous documents, tablets, and any
electronic device. Finally, the Messenger bags are equipped with several pockets, both small and large, useful for those who need to carry many items even for a simple walk.
Conclusions
Today leather accessories are becoming more and more fashionable. Very appreciated are the leather bags, which make the outfits of every woman. But to be truly exclusive and original, the leather must be worked and sewn with professionalism, to make any product unique and quality. For this reason, it is very important that artisans use the most sophisticated techniques especially in the seam.
