Designing Leather Goods: Cutting & Shaping

‘Leather has a 3D memory, if you cut the shoulder of a cow, it will return. The power of the leather is stronger than the will of the designer’, words imparted years earlier by a production manager at a luxury Italian manufacturer, a warning that still rang true.

‘We roughly throw away half of the leather we order, because of the way in which we need to cut the specific pieces.’ I thought of this as I looked at the hide. It was evident some sections had more consistency than others and these areas only extended so far.

The Structure of Leather

Before I could design, I needed to consider how the structure of the leather changed within each side. Often in leather production these changes in fibre structure are distinguished by dividing the hide into sections, most commonly by the shoulders, backs (bends) and bellies, as each have a distinctively different feel.

I had previously seen these sections cut off before the tanning process began. First to go was the belly.

Shaping: Starting the Tanning Process

A continuous vertical strip cut from the side of the hide.Much like our bellies, it is softer and looser than the rest of the body. This sort of fibre structure makes it more susceptible to wrinkling once in the form of leather and so is less suited to applications where it may need to be stretch resistant.