Vegetable Tanned Leather

Why use Vegetable Tanned (Veg Tan) Leather?

Vegetable tanned leather is one of the oldest types of leather production. Vegetable tanning uses the natural tannins that are found in tree bark and vegetables to tan animal hides into a leather that is a uniquely flexible and durable material.

As a full grain leather (meaning the top side has not been sanded, buffed, or otherwise corrected to the remove natural patterns and grain), colour variation is inevitable with vegetable-tanned leather, and there are no synthetic chemicals used in this process to control consistency. This means that vegetable tanned leather will continue to evolve over time (especially undyed veg tan leather); it will respond to light, as well as the oils and moisture in your hands, which means your product will age beautifully as the colour darkens and the leather develops a unique patina through use. Vegetable tanned leather has no surface treatment and, since the final nature of the leather is under the control of the leatherworker, it has a wide variety of uses. It is suitable for carving, embossing, or dying (all processes used by Blades and Blazers). It is also used for "wet-moulding".

Blades and Blazers buys in natural and undyed Rio sides of leather that orginate in Brazil.

Why must it dye?

Part of the Blades and Blazers production process is to hand dye all of the pieces that go into every product we make. We use an alcohol based, oil pigment, dye created specifically for natural strap leather, vegetable tanned leather and bag & case leather with superior color fastness. By hand dying natural leather we can control the finish of the final product as well as being able to provide a very wide range of colours options for our commissions.

Vegan leather is an oxymoron

Blades and Blazers will not use “vegan leather”. Ignoring the oxymoron that statement is, “vegan leather” is commonly made from plastic and is produced through a number of processes that involve non-environmentally friendly chemicals. Even plant based “vegan leathers” require some chemical bonding agent which is typically petroleum derived. Though it intitially looks no different from natural leather, it does not behave like leather. As a finished product, it degrades in quality and durability in a much shorter amount of time than leather made products. This adds to the unsustainability of fashion, specifically regarding the “throw-away culture”, since most people would simply get rid of a compromised garment than go to the effort of having it recycled (a process that further polutes and uses harsh chemicals with every stage of the plastic’s transformation) and is only subject to “down-recycling”, meaning that it cannot be recycled back into “vegan leather”.

The leather that Blades and Blazers uses is a natural byproduct of the beef industry. We believe that one can honour the life lived by an animal by minimising the wastage of its remains, and we believe that sustainable and durable materials that can last a lifetime with care are far better for the planet than the other “chic” materials of the “fast fashion” industry. Additionally, why settle for something that just looks like leather when you could really have leather? Finally, vegetable tanned leather can be disposed of (should you so wish) with the knowledge that it will completely biodegrade in 25-40 years (far shorter than plastics and petro-chemical products, like “vegan leather”, that take 500+ years, if ever).