Thoughts on Leather in Otzi’s Design and Craft

The Timeless Versatility of Leather

  Leather has been used continuously as one of humanity’s primary and primal materials for over seven thousand years, serving a myriad of purposes for both domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. It has true versatility; the raw hide like, other natural ingredients such as milk and grape juice, can be turned into an almost infinite array of leathers by tweaking the tanning and currying (finishing) processes, either subtly or greatly to achieve a wide range of results. 

Continuity in Craft: Leatherworking Through the Ages

   Just like the art of traditional tanning, practiced by a select few tanneries around the world, traditional leatherwork and craft has changed little over the centuries. We still clothe ourselves in leather, use it to bind our finest books, make bags and receptacles and clad our floors, walls  and furniture in it, much in the same way we have done for centuries. The only change is the style and perhaps the finesse and refinement with which we work with, design and apply it as a material. No matter how incredible the robotically operated sewing machine stitches pieces together or embroiders a pattern, it is still essentially a needle being perforated through the material with a thread; something the first neolithic users of hide would have had time to do to attach panels or pieces all those millennia ago. 

Otzi’s Ethos: Reinterpreting Traditional Techniques

 Our work at Otzi is focused on maintaining traditional craft practices and keeping them alive today, reinterpreting them and reinvigorating them to keep them relevant and contemporary. The leather we choose to work with pit tanned and vegetable tanned, which take longer to produce; taking over a year in some cases. The result is a firm, robust and beautifully finished material that will last for decades and paginate in a way that benefits the piece, ageing gracefully and with character. 

The Hallmarks of Quality 

One of the hallmarks of high quality leatherwork is hand stitching. It is a laborious process but it’s strength and precision is something that cannot be replicated by machine and the outcome give a beautiful consistency and finish that can withstand heavy use. It’s still used in high end and luxury bag making and furniture and we employ hand saddle stitching, bar stitching and butt stitching in most of our pieces. 

 Another feature of fine leather working is edge finishing. Rather than cutting the leather and leaving it with a raw unfinished edge, or covering it with an acrylic paint, we pay great attention by meticulously hand sanding, dying and burnishing the edges, that is smoothing and polishing using a mixture of natural gum and beeswax. We do this to our handmade lace to give a more polished appearance that will wear better over time. 

Tools and Materials

The traditional hand tools are the bedrock of our work but we believe in mixing contemporary design and modern technology with these techniques to produce work that is engaging and elevated. We make patterns, cut complex timber shapes and difficult joinery on modern digital fabrication machines, pairing them with handmade joinery and more traditional methods of construction. The fusing of the old and the new leads to better design that is more suited to today life, allowing us to make pieces more accurately and with more detail than if we were to use only hand tools for our work. 

The leathers we use in Otzi’s products is always full grain, aniline dyed leather; meaning that it is the best part of the hide, the top, that features all of the amazing and unique character of a hide, dyed with a water based dye that saturates into the hide but not on the surface so that it ages better and doesn’t have a finish that breaks or scratches. If you mark or scratch our leathers they can be buffed and restored far more easily. They are initially more impressionable but in the course of their long life they will wear all these marks better and more elegantly.

One of the reasons I love working with these heavier traditionally tanned leathers is that for a designer they are amazing to work with and offer so much potential. They have a lot of structure and tensile strength and yet can be thinned down to be something entirely different, suited to fine wrapping, lining or more flexible applications. Their robustness is something that I admire and respect greatly because you want something to stand up to the rigours of daily life. Many of these leathers were developed for the equestrian industry and so if they can withstand the sheer stress and heavy use of that environment, they are more than capable to withstand the domestic and even commercial uses.