My visit to a Tuscan leather tannery in Italy
In September 2018, I visited the Tempesti S.P.A leather tannery in Tuscany, Italy to learn more about the vegetable tanned leather, tanning process. Some of the leather I use comes from tanneries in this region so this was a key reason to visit.
Tempesti are part of a consortium of 22 tanneries in the Tuscany region that adhere to standards set to preserve the tradition of Tuscan vegetable tanned leather and also to sustainability standards so each tannery operates in a responsible way. The consortium is called the Consorzio Vera Pelle, you can visit their website to learn more.
Emiliano, the tannery owner, took me round and I got to see how the animal skins come into the tannery and their journey throughout the process to a finished hide. It has a family feel and employs around 30 people which is small in comparison to some of the large tanneries in the Far East. They produce about 300 skins a week where the large tanneries would produce thousands.
Leather here takes around 3 weeks to produce. This is much faster to say the oak bark leather that comes from Devon, England (approx 12 months) but still slower than the vast majority of leather (chrome tanned) which takes around 1.5 days.
I feel like the leather produced here is a mix of keeping the handmade traditions of the past but they also blend with modern machinery to make this a more commercially viable product than say the oak bark leather tannery in Devon.
I love the fact that small details such as in the photo below where they check all the finished hides one by one and put them into grades depending on their quality. This attention to detail is just part of what makes this leather special.
IMAGE GALLERY - INSIDE THE TANNERY
