Leather news and archive

Italian leather industry closes 2024 with 30 billion euro turnover, down 8.6 percent

Milan - With approximately 10,000 active businesses, the Italian leather industry closed 2024 with a total turnover of 30 billion euros. This represents an 8.6 percent decrease compared to the previous year. The negative trend was also confirmed in the first six months of 2025, with a further 5.3 percent decline compared to the same period in...

Quiet Luxury bag brand Gladstn London launches in the US

A current best-seller in Harrods since it launched there a year ago, Gladstn London is coming to the US. The range of bags created in fine Italian leather began as a menswear range but now boasts styles that are considered “shareable” according to owner and CEO (or Chief Bag Carrier as he prefers), Richard Sharman, who sits down with...

Item of the week: the leather coat

What it is: The trench coat is a popular staple coat silhouette that has transcended seasons and time periods to still be relevant in the modern day. However, it has seen an update for the coming autumn/winter 2023 season in the form of a material adaptation – particularly with the use of leather or leather alternatives. Many a designer took on...

Featured

Fairs

Science fiction influences shape the future of leather

Science fiction is a tool for ambitious thinkers. This was the message running through the leather trend presentation at Lineapelle in NYC last week. But just as science fiction is difficult to define, ambiguity is omnipresent in trend forecasting with references to science, technology, AI and human exploration, and the enormous global...

Featured

Fairs

Leather can become fertilizer for organic farming and other industry eco-initiatives

In a look ahead to Summer 2023, a future that is beautiful and fragile was in the forecast at Lineapelle’s New York leather fair. Human impact on the earth and its ecosystems has been so outsized that the severity of our effect has forced us to face our own fragility in recent years. But the theme intends for optimism—that moments of fragility...

Fashion |Interview

Ostwald on the craftsmanship of couture bags

When you think of couture, most people think of clothing from the likes of Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton, however, there is a growing appetite for one-off pieces in accessories and leading the way is German independent Ostwald merging subtle luxury and traditional craftsmanship to produce unique handbags from high quality tanned and refined...

Research shows that an anti-viral treatment can inactivate coronavirus on leather

Researchers at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) working with the British Footwear Association (BFA) have discovered that while coronavirus can remain on shoe leather for up to two days that there is also an anti-viral treatment that can inactivate coronavirus after two hours. The independent research was commissioned to help the shoe...

Mulberry asks “can a bag save the world” with a new sustainable manifesto

To mark its 50th anniversary, British heritage brand Mulberry has launched its new ‘Made to Last Manifesto’ an ambitious framework to transform its business into a regenerative and circular model, encompassing the entire supply chain, from field to wardrobe by 2030. The brand is committed to switching to a hyper-local and circular model to...

Starting at the Start for Sustainable Fashion: The Argument for Focusing on Raw Materials

By now, anyone who’s paying attention to the fashion industry knows that we have an urgent sustainability problem on our hands. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, if we stay on our current path, the fashion industry alone will take up a quarter of the entire world’s carbon budget by 2050. To avert climate catastrophe, we’re going to...

The fashion industry can no longer justify the use of leather without traceability

A new exposé by Peta is aimed to shake up fashion’s leather industry, which often overlooks transparency in the supply chain of manufacturers, specifically when it comes to animal cruelty. A global-wide ban of fur and industry calling for the ethical treatment of animals has largely evaded leather producers, as leather is still seen as a...

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