Scratches, stains and patina: what to fix and what to leave
Most marks on a full-grain bag fade or polish out. A few need care. Here is how to tell which is which.
A short leather walk through Kolkata
From the tanneries east of the city to our counter on Free School Street, where Kolkata’s leather is made and sold.
Kolkata has been a leather city for more than a hundred years, and you can follow the trade across it in an afternoon.
Start east. The old tanneries of Tangra moved out to the leather complex at Bantala some years ago, and most of the hides we buy are finished there. It is a working industrial area, not a place for tourists, but the drive along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass shows how large the trade is. Imtiaz goes once or twice a month to pick hides by hand.
Closer in, Topsia is where small workshops like ours cut and stitch. You will hear sewing machines and smell leather from the lanes off the main road. If you would like to see our bench, message us a day ahead and come on a weekday afternoon; the craftsmen are happy to show a cutting or a stitch, though they will keep working while they talk.
Then head west to the city centre. New Market and the lanes around Bentinck Street have sold shoes, belts and bags for generations, at every price and quality, and it is a good place to train your eye by comparing cut edges and stitching. Finish at our store at 9 Free School Street, five minutes from Park Street, open 11 am to 8 pm from Monday to Saturday. Ask to handle an unfinished hide offcut: it explains full-grain better than any label.
