Piamonte: fantastic Italian cow leather
This beautiful Italian cowhide leather with a thickness of 1.3 – 1.5 mm is very suitable for leather goods and can also be used well for furniture upholstery. This supple leather has body, it gives a stable and pleasant feeling. And because we offer it in more than 70 rich, fashionable colors, you can go anywhere with it!
Leather is recognizable by the typical drawing of the grain. In order to bring out and accentuate this print even more, Piamonte is provided with a print by a mechanical roller. But before that happens, there are a lot of edits that precede it. We take you on that journey!
This beautiful leather is made from carefully selected wet blue hides from South American cattle. A little side trip to explain what wet blue is: during tanning, the skin must be mixed with a tanning agent that binds with the proteins in the skin. The most commonly used tanning agent is the metal salt Chromium sulphate. The leather that is created is bluish in color, hence the name wet blue. Back to the beginning: the South American cattle. This breed has a typical hump in the shoulder area, which you will sometimes find in the final skin. Fortunately, it is then in an innocent place, close to the fold of the back and it has no practical consequences.
The tannery that processes the fresh hides into wet blue hides uses the most advanced technologies and innovative chemical products, all while respecting global safety standards and standards. The wet blue hides are washed to make them even softer. After washing, they move on to the next step: splitting and planing. Now the hides are made to the desired thickness of 1.3 to 1.5 mm. Then we enter the retanning phase, now the leather is increasingly getting the desired look. The hides are washed several times. This is followed by fats, to soften the dermis (the dermis). Then follows the delicate phase of coloring the skins.
Now that the hides have the beautiful desired color, they are washed, pressed and dried. The hides are stretched and dried to even out the grain and remove imperfections. This 'plastering' and 'planing' is the penultimate operation. Now the skin only has to go through a mechanical roller, with which the grain is rolled onto the skin. Now it has that typical signature Piamonte print!
After all these operations, the skin should rest for a few hours. Then the leather can be selected, trimmed, measured and prepared for shipment. We are proud to have this beautiful cowhide leather in our range!
