Why vegetable-tanned leather takes time

Most leather in the world is tanned with chromium salts in about twenty-four hours. It is soft, uniform and cheap, and it will look on its last day roughly as it looked on its first.

Vegetable tanning uses tannins drawn from oak, chestnut and mimosa bark. Hides move slowly through pits of increasing strength for four to six weeks. The result is denser, firmer and alive: it darkens in sunlight, softens in the hand and records every year of use.

We use it for everything we make that is meant to be handled. It costs more and it takes longer. That is the point.