On the Origin of Cognac Leather

Périgord is best known for its truffles and its foie gras. But for those who work with leather, the region is significant for a different reason: the bark of the oak trees that grow on its limestone hillsides has a particular tannin concentration that produces, over eighteen months of processing, a hide unlike any other.

"Chrome tanning takes two days. Vegetable tanning takes two years. That gap is not a problem to solve. It is the product."

The Garonne family has been tanning leather in Ribérac since 1887. The current patriarch, Étienne, is the fourth generation. His son works alongside him. The fifth generation is learning.

The pit method

The hides arrive from a single abattoir forty kilometres south. They are salted for preservation, then soaked for ten days to rehydrate. After liming — a process that removes the hair and opens the fibre structure — they enter a sequence of pits filled with progressively stronger tannin solutions made from ground oak bark and river water.

The pits are below ground level, covered with wooden boards when not in use. The smell is earthy, faintly sweet, nothing like what people expect leather to smell. The hides spend between twelve and eighteen months in this sequence — moved from pit to pit as concentration increases — before emerging as finished leather.

"Our hides are in those pits for longer than most modern tanneries have existed."

The result is a leather with a firmness and density that softens specifically in response to use. It does not crack. It does not peel. It develops a patina that is entirely individual — responding to the particular chemistry of the person who carries it.

The Arcana Cognac Tote uses full-grain leather from the Garonne tannery. Each bag is hand-stitched in Toulouse.