The Invariable Aesthetic
Consumers’ demand keeps leather on steady growth pattern
By Anna Thibodeaux
Leather is the hot category in seating and with competition bringing prices down, sales are expected to keep rising. Seating manufacturers and tanneries discuss the changing leather market.
Savvier consumers’ growing passion for leather furniture has fueled a 17 percent jump in the market since the 1980s. Manufacturers anticipate even stronger sales and, in many cases, competition is causing leather hide prices to move downward.
“Leather is one of the hottest categories in furniture,” says Sanjay Chandra of American Leather, a 10-year veteran in leather seating manufacturing based in Dallas, Texas. “We’re one of the fastest growing companies in the industry. We’ve been growing at a compound rate of 50 percent since 1990.”
Hide to leather |
A hide typically arrives salt cured from a processing plant, though fresh hides are better. It is soaked in water. Hair is chemically removed. Salts remove lime and adjust acid-alkaline (pH). Enzymes eliminate residual materials like hair roots and pigments in the outer grain.
The hide is pickled in salt and acid.
Ninety percent of tanners use chromium tanning because it produces versatile leather in less time. The hide is wrung out, trimmed and then fed through a splitting machine and a shaving machine for uniform thickness.
The hide is re-tanned, typically with vegetable extracts, syntans or mineral compounds singly or in combination. It is colored with aniline-type dyes, the most common being acid, metallized, direct or basic.
Fatliquors (oil and related fatty substances) are applied for smoothness. Emulsifiers also may be used. The hide is smoothed and stretched to remove excess moisture.
The leather is usable, but generally conditioned with a fine mist of water. It is machine rubbed to set hardness or softness, lightly buffed and coated with chemicals to improve grain, stain resistance and enhance color.
The leather is smoothed out or pressed to produce varied grain textures. It is graded for temper, uniformity of color and thickness, and defects. It is then measured for square footage and shipped. |
La-Z-Boy is averaging 12 to 20 percent growth a year, a trend the major furniture maker says is gaining momentum.
Tanneries and manufacturers are focusing hard on leather’s key selling point or what they call “a great hand”—a softness not found in any other fabric. One furniture maker described it as “an invariable aesthetic.”
Hundreds of tanneries worldwide, especially in Europe and South America, are seeking to sell that feel and are making it so plentiful that they’re driving prices down and making leather furniture more affordable. Furniture makers are responding by being more discriminating leather shoppers.
At Prime Tanning, Senior Vice President Michael Kaplan says that furniture makers want the “big three:”
• a large piece of leather, about 48 to 50 square-feet, with few to no blemishes or holes;
• an affordable price;
• delivery when promised.
The company, an 80-year-old international tannery in Rochester, NH, specializes in aniline-dyed leathers. Ten percent of its weekly production—an estimated 50,000 bovine hides—goes to residential furniture.
Size and quality are major factors, Chandra says. Leather is also checked for fade and abrasion resistance.
American Leather, which specializes in custom mid- to high-end furniture, showed a 20 percent jump in sales over last year, he reports. Shipping over 38,000 pieces this year, the company markets heavily on shipping made-to-order pieces in two weeks.
Hottest leather colors are every shade of brown, Chandra observes. Black is back again and neutral colors like taupe and gray are strong.
“It’s brown, brown, brown and then burgundy, greens and blues,” Kaplan muses about consumers’ color preferences.
Black is the predominant color at Haworth Industries’ Allegan seating plant because that’s the preferred color for executive office seating.
Consistent grain pattern and consistent color from hide-to-hide and order-to-order are among Haworth’s requirements for leather, explains Jack VerMeulen, plant quality engineer.
VerMeulen says he shops for leather that’s soft and supple, with consistent thickness for easier upholstering, and few to no holes or blemishes like scars and tick bites.
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| La-Z-Boy’s latest design exemplifies consumers’ increasing taste for natural leather. |
“Determine the aesthetic you want from the leather furniture,” he adds. “Some customers want the leather to look ‘natural,’ with all of the flaws, scars, brands, wrinkles, etc…. Other customers want a more ‘finished’ look, with few natural flaws.”
La-Z-Boy shops for novel looking aniline leathers, while it also considers all of the above factors.
“The first thing we’re looking for today is something that’s unique—something we don’t have in our line already,” says Pat Iott, company manager of fabric operations at its headquarters in Monroe, MI.
La-Z-Boy, a major manufacturer of leather furniture, sells about 300,000 pieces a year or 20 percent of all company furniture sold.
From a furniture manufacturer’s standpoint, the business has changed in the past six years with the emergence of South American tanneries, mostly in Buenos Aires and other parts of Argentina. They set up tanneries in the U.S., selling most of the furniture leather, and all seem to have a particular niche, Iott says. Most U.S. tanneries sell strictly to automobile makers now.
Three major La-Z-Boy suppliers include Arpel Leather in High Point, NC, with an operation in Argentina; Arcona Leather in Sawmills, NC, a division of Schweizer Leather in Germany; and Anthem Leather, also in High Point, with a tannery in Buenos Aires.
Increased competition also lowered leather prices, which is a windfall when a sofa may take 200 to 250 square feet of leather, says Iott.
Finished leather prices have fallen to $1.40 to $1.50 a square foot from $2 to $2.20, Iott says. Aniline leather, with its increasingly desired natural look, is fetching about $2 instead of nearly $2.70.
Prime Tanning’s biggest competitor is Italy, Kaplan says. Brazil and Argentina are coming in strong.
American Leather’s major suppliers are Elmo Leather in New Jersey whose parent company is Elmo of Sweden; Anthem Leather of Highpoint, NC, which represents Esposito Leather in Buenos Aires; and Leather Network, which represents several tanneries in Italy.
Chandra says they’re seeing a tightening market on the most natural leathers, which means high-end leather prices have been creeping up in the last year.
American Leather’s high-end leathers are made from Scandinavian and other Northern European hides, which have fewer distressed marks and are very large in size.
Iott says that because La-Z-Boy works with innovative leathers, intense planning is required to set up its production.
“We meet and review a couple of production runs on it so once we get into manufacturing there are no more surprises,” he explains, adding, there are a lot of variables in dealing with a natural product. They meet at the company’s cutting plant in Newton, MS.
While manufacturers agree that leather furniture requires more work and cost, they also agree it offers the consumer a special product.
“Leather can be a lifetime investment, especially if it’s taken care of,” Iott adds. “It’s almost an heirloom piece.”
