Garment Leather is chrome-tanned, top grain cowhide sides that are supple and lightweight. It is ideal for ladies fashion garment use and can be used for light upholstery applications.

Raising the animals whose skin eventually becomes leather requires vast amounts of water and wide tracts of pastureland cleared of trees—which destroys habitat for millions of species and drives climate change. Many workers in tanneries also die from exposure to the chemicals involved.

Thickness

The thickness of leather relates to durability in a number of ways. It affects the ability to stretch and how flexibly the leather is, and it also impacts the drape of the fabric. It’s important to note that drape is primarily determined by leather thickness and rigidity/stiffness, with tensile strength playing only a secondary role.

The typical thickness of car or furniture leather can be up to 0.9 to 1.2 millimeters. Anything over 1.4 millimeters is considered thick leather. Garment leather for light leisure jackets is generally about 0.5 to 0.9 millimeters thick.

Thicker leather is typically bridle or vegetable-tanned for outdoors use, while thinner leather is usually chrome-tanned and used for bags, belts, knife sheaths and holsters. Vegetable tanned leather tends to fade in sun or wet conditions but works well for indoor applications and is less expensive than heavier, bridle leather. Different portions of the hide yield different quality leather as well. The face, cheek and shanks (legs) are lower-quality leather that often ends up in reconstituted or bonded leather products.

Durability

Garment leathers are a special type of leather that is used to make clothing, and they must have specific drapery qualities. The drape is the way that a garment falls when it is worn, and it should be smooth and fluid to ensure comfort. This type of leather also needs to be able to stretch without overstretching or losing its shape.

Several factors have been shown to influence the drapability of leather, including thickness and flexural rigidity. These factors have been correlated with the drapeability of leather through various experiments. This research can be useful in understanding the drapability of leather and selecting appropriate materials for garment production.

Vegetable-tanned leather is a durable and lightweight material that has natural shades ranging from earth tones to bright fashion colors. This kind of leather is often drum dyed to ensure that the color completely permeates the hide. It is a good choice for garments, vests, moccasins, fringe, and light upholstery leather.

Drape

Garment leather is a special type of leather that has been tanned to create soft, lightweight garments. This type of leather is available in a wide variety of colors, from earth tones to fashion design shades. It is suitable for tooling, embossing and molding. It also absorbs dyes and oils well, making it easy to make beautiful, long-lasting leather clothing.

Garments are usually made from goat skin, lambskin or sheep skin but can also be fashioned from other types of leather including bovine (traditional cowboy jackets), deer (historical costumes and conservative casual jackets), horse (worn for riding or workwear) and even kangaroo skins (motorcycle riding). However, the majority of clothing leather is manufactured from chrome-tanned goatskins.

The drapery qualities of garment leather are determined mainly by its thickness and rigidity/stiffness properties. The relationship between flexural rigidity and the bending length of the specimen is complex. It is important to understand these relationships in order to correctly determine the drape coefficient of a garment leather sample.

Color

Garment Leather is a particular type of leather that has been tanned and treated to make it supple enough to be used like fabric. This means that it will stretch with your body without becoming misshapen or losing its color, while being able to withstand perspiration and other weather conditions.

Our garment leather comes in different finishes including suede split, which is chrome-tanned top grain cowhide that has had the surface buffed and the tiny hair cells shaved off to produce the classic suede effect. This is also available as a drum dyed aniline leather, meaning that the color will soak completely through the skin.