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| Our customers are usually
working on a small scale in specialised genres. They
produce timeless quality leather products that last. It's
craft rather than massive operation. We provide
them with natural materials to work with; non toxic
oils and waxes, natural wax cotton threads, water based
eco dyes and finishes and natural sustainable leather.
We’ve added care and conserve
to the ‘reduce,
reuse and recycle’ principle and are endeavouring
to achieve this under the following headings:-
- Over 75% of the leather we sell is pure vegetable
tanned.
- All leather is produced in tanneries with an explicit
policy to continually reduce their environmental
impact.
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Additionally our work
in digital image surface decoration reduces the environmental
impact of leathers by over 50%. It enables leading edge looks and fashion
effects to be produced on an organic leather base. We
were part of the winning team of London’s Fashion
Fringe recently; green aesthetics are here now, the days
of hippy-dippy green decorating are over. Beautiful
surface designs can be added to organically dyed leathers.
Identity Organic Leather
At present under development, it
is based on:-
- Skins or hides from animals that are humanely raised
and organically fed;
- Organic tannage and colouring;
- Surface decoration by either laser,
embossing, carving, pyrography and organic digital
printing;
- Third party certification.
Leatherwork Materials
We continue to increase our offer of organic or sustainable products
in all areas of our business.
- Good leather, naturally
produced, matures beautifully with age. With help from selected waxes and
oils this process can be enhanced and the performance
of the original leather improved. We
recommend a series of leather care products and
can demonstrate and advise on their effects.
- Our Northampton Store is within a mile of two leather
research and development organisations and the National
Leather Conservation Centre.
- We work with two Shoe Repairers
so can give your shoes a “complete overhall”.
- At our Matlock Store, we
have a full vintage section of leather and natural
material; clothing, shoes and bags. There
is a beautiful collection from the 40's through
to the 90's. Eventually
we will have the most interesting, including Bill
Gibb, Jean Muir etc. up on our web site but in
the meantime come and visit!
- We also give a £2.00 voucher
for any reasonable condition leather product you
want to dispose of. These we either recondition
and resell or cut up for reuse in other things.
We
believe in a ‘cradle to cradle’ approach,
but if the life of a leather product has to end the
biodegradability of all parts of the product have
to be considered. Under the right conditions
leather can be composted and we are working to understand
the differences in biodegradability between different
leathers. Undoubtedly vegetable/smoke tanned
leathers lead the way. |
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In
the last three centuries virtually every town in every
country had a tannery to service the local
population needs. The industrialisation of processes
in specific areas had much to do with the negative environmental
image that the industry developed.
However chrome cannot be the sole future. There
are questions of sustainability, as well as process control. There
is no recognised one way of categorising leather for either
carbon footprint or “organic-ness”. However
there are groups of people throughout the world working for
sustainability and reduction of leather’s environmental
impact. At present customers of leather products can
only examine the credentials, values and results of people
that are selling them. It will be a gradual process because
of the infrastructure that has developed, but we will get there.