A Brief History of Leather

Leather is beautiful, durable and surprisingly controversial, and today, quality leather products are sought the world over by consumers. Bags, shoes, wallets, jackets, sporting equipment, furniture, even dog collars…the list of products goes on and on. It's clear that humans in the here and now are having an ongoing love affair with this wonderful material. One of the best things about it is how luxurious it feels and looks, while remaining within most budgets; even college students can just put aside a little bit of money each week and in not too long be able to afford that nice jacket or the those classy tall boots. The leather industry is one that has been established for ages, so it is strange to think of a time when the wearer of leather garments was in fact the one who created the material in the first place. We're guessing the first time someone made real leather and then wore it, they were pretty amazed and couldn't wait to make more - an outfit for every member of the family and then extra to use as a fastener or to piece together for footwear. Such is the addictive draw of this ancient material. Here is a brief history of the practical skill of leather-making. Now you know who to thank for those fine Italian belts available in stores!

The Ancients

Before the ancients learned how to make a material that resisted rot and wear, they would have made do with less durable animal skins that had not been treated the way leather is. This would have left them quite vulnerable to the elements and prone to replacing things much more often, as the untreated animal hides would break down with greater speed. Amazingly, independent of one another, ancient civilizations all over what is now known as the Middle East figured out that tanning hides using tree bark created a much stronger, more hazard-proof material that could still be worked and sewn.

Greeks and Romans inherited a much more sophisticated and efficient system of leather tanning, allowing them to use leather in a variety of ways and on a large scale. For instance, a leather undershirt was de rigueur in the Roman army, and since there were probably hundreds of thousands of soldiers at any one time during the Empire…well, that comes out to a lot of leather.

The Dark and Middle Ages

Much was lost during the decline of Rome, but leather tanning remained a constant for the unfortunate souls who suffered the loss of quite a bit of Roman technology. In fact, while other advances halted or even backslid, tanners experienced some breakthroughs, particularly in the eighth century, with the development of Cordovan leather.

Beginning in the Middle Ages, as the European world was beginning to hurtle toward Renaissance, kings and queens, as well as their great landowning magnates, began to accumulate a lot of extra wealth that could be used for expensive fripperies. It was around the 1100s and 1200s that leather as decoration or leather for aesthetics' sake was being produced. People still needed things, but rich people wanted pretty-looking things. They would have loved having Gavere Leather around!

The Renaissance until Today

Throughout the centuries following the Medieval period, the need and desire for leather only grew, and the skill with which it was created and then worked was perfected. For a very long period of time, saddle-making was an essential industry, though the advent of automobiles brought an end to that boom.

For hundreds of years, the basic process of tanning leather did not change. In fact, many people agree that the old ways are the best ways, but science has come up with some innovations to diversify the appearance of leather.