The Leather
Like other exotic skins, ostrich is a small-area skin compared to bovine and horse hides, and is ranked by the follicles per area since they thin out further away from the neck. It is processed consequently in a more particular way to preserve the largest possible area for processing and treatments, and is put through more than 30 stages related to this. Per unit it is comparable to goat and sheep skins and the range of equipment used is about the same. For this reason, the smaller units, smaller batches, subsequent longer tanning times and skills, increase the cost, elevating it to a luxury product.
Chemical measurements must be precise to avoid mistakes and waste to produce a beautiful, finished skin. Skins are tagged, production takes time and quality standards are high. Lime is added, removed and redone after days of processing and expert clipping prevents skins from tangling with each other. Pigmentation is bleached out of the skin, there is tanning and more tanning with mould prevention along the way. A well-finished hide necessarily receives high-quality colours and finishing dyes to industry and market standards.
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Famous quotes containing the word leather:
“I was the horse and the rider,
and the leather I slapped to his rump
spanked my own behind.”
—May Swenson (1919–1995)
“In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)