SKIN DEEP - Article in Design Quarterly Magqzine - DQ Issue 53

Fuelled by "a deeply held passion for beautiful leather", Australian entrepreneurs Andrew Brown and Sean Coleman join forces with premier German tanneries Heller-Leder, Leder-Fiedler and LCK Leather Care to form Corium Leather — a Sydney-based start-up determined to raise the standard of leather supply in Australia, and shake things up along the way.

Corium's technical director, Andrew Brown, has been in the furniture design and leather industry for "101 years" and came to identify a big problem with the leather available in Australia — low-grade, over-treated hides from Italian-ese (Italian design, Chinese made) or Chinese-Chinese tanneries. "Leather works backwards," says Brown, "the less you do to it, the better it will be. The products that are the cheapest and lowest quality go through the most production before it gets to market. So when you walk away from a generic-designed lounge with a slightly greasy handfull of feel-agent (a spray-on substance to make poor leathers look and feel higher quality), it's been processed and applied to give the effect that it's softer than it actually is. A much higher standard has been operating in Europe for aeons, but for some reason in Australia we have a tendency to use over-treated, and processed leathers. This is what made me really look at the Heller, Fiedler and Leather Care hides and say 'yes, this is what Australian design is missing'."

Enter the Germans, whose leathers are minimally treated, dermatologically tested and sustainably harvested. According to Brown, the main difference they found with Heller, Fiedler, LCK Leather Care products and the Chinese alternative is that the German hides actually look and feel like "real grown-up leather." It doesn't look plastic and over-processed — something Brown and many in the industry identify as being in huge deficit in the current Australian design scape.

Heller-Leder for instance is an accredited member of the Leather Working Group (LWG) — a global taskforce for developing and maintaining a protocol that assesses the compliance and environmental performanceof tanners around the world. The group audits tanneries in developing nations, promoting sustainable and appropriate environmental business practices within the leather industry.

"Heller's work with LWG exemplifies their mission to raise the standard of global leather supply and tannery business operation," says Brown — "something the Australian design industry sorely needs, and which is very closely aligned with the heart of our own business." For Corium however, it's not just about raising the standard of the leather itself, but raising the standard of how suppliers approach the designer and specifier market. After doing some preliminary research prior to the partnership, Brown asked himself one question: "Where is the love?" Having been in the industry for the majority of his career, Brown discovered that the current Australian supply offering was lacking in what he believes to be a fundamental part of business — face-to-face interaction.

"We really want to bring back the love and engage with the industry and get designers to physically interact and feel the leather. You really need to with this kind of product. It's not enough to look at a picture online and put in an order, nor is it the kind of product that you can just flip through a small book of samples. The level of engagement needs to be more humanised, and that's the way it should be. You need to see the whole hide, flaws and alt, where there is no hiding.  I feel like the leather industry has in a way forgotten about the importance of 'touch and feel' when approaching the market, and that is something we are determined to bring back."