Guide to Buying Leather Clothing

Leather is nature's most practical and sensual material. Because of new techniques, skins are lighter, enabling designers to fashion garments for year round use. Beautiful finishes, textures and colors enhance leather's appeal and universality. To help you fully appreciate your genuine leather garment,we offer the following information on how this unique natural product is made - and the proper ways to care for it.

What to look for when buying leather

The look and feel
If you are like most people, the first thing you do when you look at a leather garment is to touch it to feel its softness and texture. The way leather feels to the touch is called its hand and the general rule is: the softer the hand, the higher the cost. We understand that buying leather online makes this difficult, so you should check with the company you are purchasing from and ask them what type of leather skins they use.

Several factors influence the general appearance and overall quality of a leather garment. The first is the raw material, which is a product of genetics. Every hide (a whole pelt from a cow or steer, etc.) and skin (the pelt of young or smaller animals) has sections that are inherently wrinkled, softer or thinner than other parts. Environmental conditions including climate and food supply are also a factor. Nature's creations are never uniform; these surface variations and imperfections impart a unique beauty to genuine leather garments.

Workmanship
The tradition of leather making is more than 5,000 years old, and the first tanners' guilds can be traced back as far as twelfth century England. First a protective treatment termed curing is applied to the hide or pelt and it is shipped to a tannery. There the raw materials undergo a chemical process to render the leather soft and pliable. Tanners can now adjust the thickness of the skin, change the color and apply a finish that alter or enhance leather's appearance. Manufacturers receive the finished products and create the leather apparel that you enjoy today.

Shopping tips
- Consider the cut, fit, quality of stitching, the lining and style that suits your lifestyle
- Choose a garment priced right for you, noting that the price of leather is greatly determined by the quality of the raw materials used and the workmanship involved
- Notice details such as water-repellent treatments, lining and trimmings on the garment

What to avoid
Many of you have seen Giovanni Navarro or "Italian Stone Design" leather products being sold all over the internet.  These products are about a cheap as you can get.  You should ask yourself why a pair of leather pants can cost just $40.  Products such as these are extremely poor quality.  To start, they are not manufactured using genuine leather skins.  They use a man made material.  The "stone design" is actually the seams of patching together several panels of the leather like material.  Unless you are on a very tight budget and cant afford genuine leather products, you should avoid these products.

LEATHER FACTS
- Leather resists tears, punctures, heat and cold
- Leather stretches and can mold to fit you, yet retains sufficient shape to provide support
- Leather is breathable and can actually wick away moisture
- Garment leather is a by-product of farming and human food production. The skins in leather garments bought in the U.S. do not come from animals killed just for their hides.
- No endangered species are ever used.