⑯ About Calf Leather: France Edition (Part 2)｜11DROPS

This is the second installment on calf leather, French edition.

Last time, among the strengths of France's renowned tanneries — (1) the quality of the raw hides, (2) the beauty of their colors, and (3) the wide range of color variations — I wrote about (1), the quality of the raw hides. This time I would like to write about (2), the beauty of their colors.

Why are French tanneries so good at color?

Of course, France's own long-cultivated color culture and aesthetic sense live on in their work, but to bring out beautiful color in leather, "water quality" is actually said to be an extremely important factor.

Tanneries Haas set up its workshop in Eichhoffen, a village in the Alsace region of eastern France. The site sits right beside the Andlau River, and when the company was founded, a channel was reportedly built to draw water directly from the river.
This area lies at the eastern foot of the Vosges mountains, a symbol of Alsace and a very old range made up mainly of granite and sandstone.
Unlike limestone areas, water that has passed through granite layers contains almost no calcium or magnesium. For this reason, the water of the Andlau River, fed by snowmelt and rain from the Vosges, is said to be an extremely high-quality granite-type "ultra-soft water" that is rare in Europe.

Why is soft water better? Hard water contains a lot of calcium and magnesium, and these metal ions react with tanning agents such as chromium salts and tannins, as well as with dyes, to form precipitates. When these stick to the leather fibers, they cause uneven dyeing and make the leather feel stiff.

So the reputation for "beautiful color" is no accident: it is closely tied to the geography of "setting up the workshop where there is high-purity soft water flowing from the mountains."

As for Tanneries du Puy, the key point is that it uses very fine, high-purity soft water (ultra-soft water) that springs from a volcanic area.

The Auvergne region is famous as a vast ancient volcanic area. Unlike limestone (hard water) areas, water filtered through igneous rock layers such as granite and basalt becomes "soft water (Eau douce)" with an extremely low content of metal ions such as calcium and magnesium.

Volcanic soft water also contains very few impurities and does not interfere with the chemical reactions of dyes, letting color penetrate evenly deep into the leather fibers, which is said to produce clear, translucent color.

Perhaps that is why the dyeing seen in the tannery's signature leathers, such as Cercatoro, Box Calf and Cervo, does not hide the leather surface under a thick coat of paint, but gives highly transparent color that brings out the leather's natural, delicate character.

Incidentally, "Puy" in the company name is a word from France's Auvergne region meaning "hill or mountain," and is generally used to mean a "volcanic hill."

As an aside, the source of Volvic, a natural soft mineral water familiar in Japan as well, is in the same Auvergne region.

Also, RÉMY CARRIAT, founded in the Basque Country in southwestern France, is said to have set up its workshop right beside the Latsa River, a clear stream flowing abundantly from the Pyrenees, to make use of its soft water.

The reasons given are that tanning and dyeing leather require huge amounts of clean water, and that the mountains from the Basque Country to the northern foothills of the Pyrenees contain very little limestone (calcium) and consist largely of Paleozoic rock and slate layers, which made the water ideally soft.

Its coloring is marked by the vividness and strong saturation typical of southern France. Its signature soft leathers, such as Lagoon and Taurillon Clemence, combine a supple, springy feel with vivid colors whose strong saturation and beauty catch the eye.

A key point is that every one of these tanneries placed its workshop where it could use plenty of the high-quality soft water that France's favorable mountain geology provides, which shows just how important water quality and water sources are to a tannery.

Historically, the same is true of other traditional French luxury tanneries such as Annonay and Degermann; their workshops were built near mountains and rivers for the clear reason that "these were places where an abundance of clean soft water, which determines the quality of dyeing, could be obtained."

It is easy to see that water quality and tanneries are inseparable.

Finally, beyond water quality, another important factor in color is that chrome-tanned leather is the mainstay at both tanneries.

Unlike vegetable-tanned leather, which tends toward a reddish brown, chrome-tanned leather provides a base "canvas" that is close to white, so the dye applied on top shows its color faithfully and vividly — another major factor.
I think it is a big advantage that, with advanced color-matching skills rooted in tradition, they can readily reproduce the colors they aim for.

(Continued in Part 3)