Today, we offer you a somewhat special article written by Régis Dajczman, founder of the Dajczman Paris brand. He was in the same premises as us at 36 rue des Jeuneurs and taught us a lot about the fashion industry.
You are not going to read a technical file, as we are used to doing, but a true declaration of love for this subject (it is the heart that speaks).
So let's hear it.
How I met leather
Leather has been part of my personal history since I was 15, the age at which I returned to France, after five years in the West Indies, a period of carefree happiness, soon marked by the presence of our two neighbors, Marco and Philippe, siblings at home. head of a leather goods workshop.
They were the first to install the Harpo style in France: vintage leather work , mixed with turquoise and bone stones, a Los Angeles and cowboy style, very popular with bikers, but also starlets and other pretty people. boys from the late 80s.
That's the Harpo style: fringes, turquoise and leather.
More recently but in the same spirit, Johnny Deep illustrates it very well for Dior.
I learned a lot from this workshop, both in the sensation of touch and smell of leather , and in manufacturing techniques. Everyone participated in the development phase.
This place represented an ideal; leather, but also rock, the imagery of motorcycles, from the 50s, the sexual nature of this relationship with a material which is also a second skin.
David Bowie Heroes period, little short jacket very 70s
It's the car race at the edge of the cliffs, the taste for bad boys and rock that represented this shimmering and rebellious universe.
It was from this period that I immersed myself in this subject, then in the different meanings that it has taken on over the ages, from the utilitarian level to the symbolic level.
The origins of leather
It was from the Upper Paleolithic that man adorned himself with skins to protect himself from the cold and external aggressions; he also used it to make tents and beds.
A strong sign of adaptation, the use of “another skin” signified the awareness that man already had of the fragility of his own bodily envelope, and the almost magical power that the skin of an animal hunted and then killed represented.
Sometimes, the remains were even buried in this material, supposed to facilitate passage to the afterlife.
How does skin become leather?
The history of techniques reveals an increasingly great mastery of the transformation of leather, with the appearance of smoking – smoking then salting of the skins – and tanning, a technique of the Hittites (ancient people of Anatolia), jealously guarded until 'to the Greek invasions...
Very jealously...
Let's talk technical, specifically. Even briefly, it is important to understand the different stages of transforming skin into leather.
First step: before tanning
It is at the moment of separation of the skin and the carcass that each skin is classified according to its qualities and defects . The skin is then salted, then dried to be preserved. Then comes the river work: the skin is moistened again, so as to remove its dirt.
Spinning-peeling then removes the hair and epidermis. Fleshing mechanically removes the remains of flesh and fat; deliming completes the river work and prepares the skin for tanning.
During tanning, the skin is mixed with a solution of tanning agents – or tannins – which makes it rot-proof.
Chrome leather / vegetable leather
The type of tannin used characterizes the leather obtained. Chromium salts, in particular, are essential for precious leathers and Nappa treatments, because the chromium saturation makes the skins significantly softer to the touch than vegetable tanning, used mainly for cowhide and calfskin.
The ultra smooth appearance of this St Laurent perfecto is characteristic of chrome tanning.
Conversely, this Ruitertassen satchel owes its aged and patinated appearance to vegetable tanning.
Then comes the working process, a set of technical operations. The thickness is obtained by splitting: the top – flower -, and the bottom – rind.
The stripping allows to refine the precision of the thickness of the flowers and the crusts. Color, feel and suppleness are provided by retanning, dyeing and feeding.
After spinning, the leather is stretched by being exposed to the wind. Drying is done by circulation of hot air in dryers, or on ice or under vacuum. The dried leather is softened by trellising.
Nubuck desert boots from Kost
Sanding produces suede or nubuck leathers.
Finally the finishing, the aniline finish highlights the natural surface appearance of the leather by covering it with a transparent product: this very beautiful appearance, delicate in maintenance, is the one that we use at Dajczman, with our cowhide leathers. or veal.
The semi-aniline finish covers the surface of the leather with layers of slightly opaque pigments, themselves covered with a transparent film.
Finally, the pigmented finish covers the surface of the leather with layers of opaque pigments which make the color insensitive to water and stains, making it easier to maintain.
How to recognize quality leather?
I am often asked how to recognize good quality leather and how I make my selections.
There are, first of all, long years of learning and, secondly, a particular sensitivity, making it possible to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Some tanneries do exceptional work, especially in France where we have been the best in this field for a very long time.
The Italians are very strong too, but more technical, it's a different approach.
Florentine tannery.
Whether in terms of vegetable or chrome tanning, there are obvious differences to the touch.
What determines the “good hand” of leather is its flexibility, the fact that it is not too dry. It's very subjective, I know, but that's how it is, especially for vegetable tanning, the leathers must remain supple despite a certain hold due to this treatment.
Indeed, so-called vegetable tanning always makes the leathers a little stiffer, but they are also the ones that will develop a patina the quickest and that’s what we like, it seems to me.
Conversely, Nappa lambskin, the softest on the market, or so-called precious leathers are saturated with chrome, which gives them real suppleness and a very pleasant roundness.
This is a real subject because, in a perfect world, only water tanning would be required, which would respect the ecosystem because water-treated leathers are much more organic and eco-responsible.
It is also, with their rarity, what makes one leather more expensive than another. Concretely, a quality vegetable tanned cowhide is not cheap.
Lambs too, particularly diving and Nappa, are more expensive since they come from a drastic selection, so that only the best skins remain.
I will not address the subject of speculation, which also comes into play, since there is a stranglehold on leather from Asia, and China in particular, making this product more and more expensive...
I cannot fail to talk about precious leathers which, through their rarity and their refined treatments, inexorably become very expensive leathers.
Above all this, there is the work of the artisans who transform the skins into works of art, depending on the given degree of finishing and expertise, like a raw precious stone, it is its transformation that gives it its value...
The place of leather in the symbolic imagination
Modern iconography is invaded by men and women equipped with leather, a legacy of the figure of the warrior. From the Greek invasions, the term “breastplate” designates a piece of leather protecting the body of soldiers, it was composed of leather and bronze plates.
In reality, ancient soldiers covered themselves a little more when going to war.
Helmets like shields were made of leather and metal. A large number of tribes adorned themselves with a headdress taken from the heads of slain animals, thus frightening their adversaries by attributing to themselves the strength and agility of the animal worn.
The aviator, modern-day cowboy
Without dwelling on this period, it is remarkable to follow the posterity of the pieces created during the Second World War, such as the famous A1 or A2 flight jacket and the B3 lined bomber.
The bomber jacket revisited by Faith Connexion. Quite incredible work on the design and leather.
The B3s were painted by the soldiers in the colors of their units, like war paint, taking on the imagery of the conquest of the West, Indians and cowboys.
Here, Benoît wears a Chevignon bomber jacket to face the Great West of Paris.
Cowboys, precisely, are the basis of our modern love of leather: they represent wide open spaces, rides into the unknown, the desire for independence and freedom, so many codes subsequently used by bikers and the rock imagery from the 60s and 70s.
Robert Redford in Jeremiah Johnson, as a trapper, dressed all in beast...
This modern iconography has been propagated by the United States since the 1930s: cinema is the ideal medium to spread this image of a man adept at the great outdoors, free, independent, protective.
Cowboys are the heroes of the beginning of the century, and they are entirely equipped with leather: chaps to protect themselves on horseback, boots with high shafts to prevent insects from penetrating them, fur-lined coats for cattle transhumance, gun holsters attached to the belt.
Itinerary of the black leather jacket
In 1953, The Wild Ones was released, based on a news item. The film establishes the graphic codes of the new rebel and master of the great outdoors: the biker. Marlon Brando plays a bad boy, a gang leader once again dressed in leather and his usual arrogance, feared by men, object of desire for women, model for an entire post-war generation on the verge of emancipation from the mold family.
From that moment on, leather appeared as one of the essential codes of the bad boy, even in France, where the famous “black jackets” appeared. It is important to observe at the same time the work of photographer Danny Lyon, who follows hordes of bikers between the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s. His work establishes the codes of modern fashion photography for all the denim and leather industry, until today.
Danny Lyon, pope of modern campaign photography, unintentionally, he set up all the graphic codes of fashion campaigns for denim brands.
The wild Ones also establishes the codes of US gay iconography of the time, deployed in Cruising by William Friedkin (1980) with Al Pacino, or The Loveless by Kathryne Bigelow (1981) with Willem Dafoe, through the incredible work of Robert Mapplethorpe on the subject.
Al Pacino in Cruising, all the iconography of "The wild ones"
The leather jacket and rock'n roll
The still nascent pop industry quickly grasped the financial implications of these codes. From Franck Sinatra and Dean Martin, we suddenly move on to Elvis Presley, while at the same time in England, Vince Taylor, an ultra rocker dressed all in leather, even sings with leather gloves.
All the groups from this period, early Beatles in the lead, are dressed in leather, with a very rockabilly aesthetic: slicked back hair, long sideburns, perfecto with a raised collar and a bad boy attitude.
Elvis, for his comeback in 1969, took exactly the black leather suit that Vince Taylor had worn 11 years earlier, a look adopted by the Ramones, then by almost all potential guitarists.
The Ramones popularized this "rock" style which inspired many later groups.
Unquestionably, leather is linked to this spirit of independence and anti-establishment . Nicolas Cage, in David Lynch's Sailor and Lula , expresses it very well: "This snakeskin jacket is a symbol of my personality and my belief in personal freedom" ("This snakeskin jacket is the symbol of my personality and of my belief in personal freedom).
It is in this adventurous lineage, rebellious, free, non-conformist, seductive imagery, that leather remains such a prized material, conferring almost superhuman powers on the wearer, a shield against the imposed uniform and the standardization of values. .
Leather remains a second skin, which will age along with the wearer, taking its shape and wearing away in certain places, creating memories, like an indelible scar.
Leather is the privileged witness of our life, the last living material that no technical support can supplant... It is from all these images, impressions, past and future, that my love for this material is born.
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Photo from one : Marco Cravero
