Our first Leatherbiz Market Intelligence report of 2023 went live in the Intelligence section of the website on January 10. Here, the newsletter raises what it calls “the $1 million question” for the leather pipeline: what must be done to make consumers turn to leather again and demand it as a material of choice in end products?

Its hard-hitting message is that labelling and certification initiatives and the work of industry campaigns have yet to deliver extra demand. Its insistence is that messages that hammer home to consumers the added benefits that they can have from choosing leather are the ones that will have the biggest impact.

“If you want to make leather fashionable again, you have to reach the consumer through function and benefit,” it says. “Benefit, benefit, benefit! That is the only thing that sets leather apart from copies and alternatives. Additional benefits in relation to price are the motto: warmer, drier, more comfortable, more durable or whatever else companies may think of.”