Origins of Leathers

Duane,

Is there a way for consumers to tell where the various different leathers come from? I am looking at a Bradington-Young leather for an ottoman which is numbered 9603-86 and would like to know the country it is sourced from.

I'm also looking at Auburn and Rancho leathers for a Hancock and Moore chair and would like to know where those come from.

As a suggestion to H&M for additional information on their site, I think the origin of the leather would be useful information. As a consumer, I would be more inclined to select, and more willing to pay a premium for, a leather that I knew would be sourced from Italy, USA, or Germany rather than Asia or South America.

There is no way for you to determine country of origin, sorry.

In fact, there is no way for the dealers to know short of contacting the leather buyer at each company. Even the Customer Service staff at all the companies does not generally know. This is why most dealers 'shoot from the hip' and just say something, because it really does take some work to find out. In almost every case, i have to go right to management to find out the country of origin.

I've spoke with Jack Glasheen (CEO, H&M) on posting the country of origin for the hides and he is not in favor of doing so. One of the reasons is several of the tanneries have multiple locations and produce a hide in different countries. Two examples:

Capri/Antelope/Quintessence (Gr 4) is from a German company. However, they also maintain a tannery in Slovakia, so the leathers may come from the German plant or the Slovakian plant, depends on what they are running as an order comes in.

Kipling (Gr 2) is from an Italian company that also has a plant in China. This too, can come from either country depending on color and timing.

Jack is the kind of man that never wants to be blindsided with an upset customer or lawsuit, so he's not going to say hard and fast that a leather comes from a certain country of origin when that tannery may have multiple international production facilities. I can see his point after he explained it to me on the phone one day.

I can tell you in the H&M lineup, only Document and Cavalier come from China. The others I will have to check on.

Thanks.

I guess that makes sense but just the info you provided would be nice. If I saw "Germany or Slovakia" listed that would be insightful. I would pass on anything that might be Chinese.

If I recall correctly, I think I read a post from you where you stated that H&M's Auburn leather was American but the facility that produces it may close.

HA! I forgot, H&M is closed all this week for July 4th vacation....so no answers this week and I have eye surgery next Monday and will be incommunicado for several days recovering afterwards so try me in a PM in two weeks time and I can find out origins of those hides.

Thanks!

Leather has truly become an international product, and for that reason its difficult to discover Country of Origin. I've been getting an increasing number of inquiries as to 'Country of Origin" on hides, and its not always easy to find out. Typically I have to call the maker, who then contacts the leather buyer, who THEN calls the mill and then the chain of calls reverse back to me with the answer.

A lot of 'crusts' or raw hides come from the USA. However the leather tanning process, by its very nature uses hazardous chemicals, and pollutes thousands of gallons of water which must be cleaned to a certain countries standard. All American tanneries have been closed by OSHA and the EPA I'm told. Therefore the crusts have to be shipped out, some will go to China, some to Europe, and so on.

Some finishers have multiple plants in various countries as well, for example there is an Italian finished that does the Hancock and Moore KIPLING leather who has operations both in Italy and in China. One batch of Kipling may be made of USA leather crusts, but finished in Italy, the next batch that comes in from the China plant.

One of the German tanneries also operates a tannery in Slovakia, and they swap back and forth within series of the hides.


That's why you see reluctance on the part of upholstery makers to disclose country of origin on the leathers. They can't always be sure on each particular batch of leather. And what they don't want to happen is to tell you that a leather came from Italy, then you open up a casing and see an internal stamping on the hide that tells you otherwise.

Because of this new information, and the difficulty in obtaining accurate answers I'm going to be less inclined to check on country of origin of the hides for forum members and customers. If its REALLY important to you, I will if you are purchasing from me directly, otherwise its probably best to consider them an International product.