Throw a leather jacket at an Australian on a 35 degree summer day and prepare for some pretty incredulous looks. Yet there are ways for local labels to incorporate this spring/summer 2010/11 fabric trend into their collections, and a certain native marsupial with the strongest skin for the job. By Erin O’Loughlin.
Ben Pollitt’s love affair with leather began long before Balenciaga, Celine, Balmain, Hermes and more sent a generous smattering of tanned hide down the runway last June. The young designer has used leather in every collection since founding his Friedrich Gray label in 2006, and grasps for a handful of descriptives when trying to explain why.
“I guess it’s the subtle feel and touch of it,” Pollitt begins. “The softness when you’re actually wearing it, how it shapes to your fit, your body. The way it can be used as a contrast to lighter weight and more sheer fabrics, like chiffons and lightweight cotton jersey. I like to use it as a shell. It’s got kind of a protective feel to it.”
Pollitt says customers at his Australian stockists, including Incu, The Corner Shop, Dirtbox and Green With Envy, are far from phased by his use of dark leathers in spring/summer apparel.
“It adds that little element,” says Pollitt. “There’s always the connection with leather with luxury.”
While the designer produces numerous leather jackets every season, it is his tendency to use leather as an “understated contrast” to other fabrics that is illustrative of one way Australian designers can utilise the material in our warmer climate. Friedrich Gray tops, trousers, denims and lightweight jackets are frequently infused with leather trimmings or feature panels, with finished garments selling from $295.
Like most designers, Pollitt uses lambskin and cow hide leathers sourced from overseas by a local supplier. Business analysis group IBISWorld reveals local leather production is supplemented by leather imports from Argentina, Italy, New Zealand, China and Brazil.
But some industry insiders say there’s one kind of leather that needs no importing and is so lightweight, few leathers can match its suitability for Australian summers. Combined with its proven strength and high durability, they are baffled as to why it is not more widely in use. The mystery leather? Kangaroo, naturally.
Anne Somoff can remember the first time she employed kangaroo leather in her designs. It was the late 1960s and the rag trade veteran had just begun her leather manufacturing and wholesale business in her father’s footwear factory in Western Australia.
“The Indian fringe look was very in at that point,” Somoff, now 70, recalls. “So we made leather jackets with fringes. Very short, short dresses – shift dresses were in at that time. We made them and they had lacing and fringing and that was perfect.”
The range was picked up by Myer and marked the beginning of Somoff’s designing career. Over proceeding decades, Somoff would work with kangaroo, merino, ostrich and lambskin leathers to make everything from jackets to skirts to accessories. Stockists included David Jones and Nordstrom department store in the US. While Somoff now only manufacturers for her own retail store, her affection for kangaroo leather has not diminished.
“I love kangaroo,” Somoff confesses. “You just cannot wear it out. It just goes on and on and on...”
It's a sentiment echoed by Paul McCaul, a designer and retailer based in Nambour in Queensland. McCaul uses kangaroo leather in a range of apparel items as well as accessories.
“It’s 10 times stronger than the average garment leather, so it’s very unlikely to rip or scuff. A lot of leather clothing is made of lambskin, and it’s pretty weak. People have a lot of trouble with it. They catch it on things and its tears, but that doesn’t happen with kangaroo.”
With over 75 years of designing and manufacturing between them, McCaul and Somoff know their stuff. But studies conducted by the CSIRO’s now defunct Leather Research Centre in association with supplier Packer Leather also support their claims.
The research found kangaroo leather has numerous advantageous qualities, including a tensile strength that exceeds that of any other domestic animal leather, a naturally fine grain, and a light weight. Differences in the fibre structure of a kangaroo’s skin also means its leather is the strongest compared to others of equivalent thickness.
Packer Leather international marketing manager Graham Packer simplifies the science.
“To get a similar strength you’d need to get a cowhide leather probably up to three times as thick. That’s why it’s well-known as a performance leather.”
Packer says clients of the Packer family tannery, which specialises in kangaroo leather, regularly use it to produce endurance wear such as football boots and motorcycle garments. But the tanning process can make kangaroo leather suitable for fashion designers as well.
“You can make it firm, you can make it very soft,” Packer says. “All that is done in the tanning process.”
As for comparing kangaroo with lambskin and cow hide, Packer says there are both positives and negatives to consider.
“It’s a point of difference, that’s one of the positives,” Packer says of kangaroo leather’s rare retail presence. Yet shoppers need not be bothered by Skippy’s dramatic transformation.
“You’ve got no hair on the leather – it’s just leather – so the normal customer would not know the difference,” Packer says.
As for price, that’s where there is a marked variation. A square foot of kangaroo leather costs around $7.50, compared to lambskin leathers that are available on the market from around $2.50 per square foot, Packer says. As a guide, Somoff says she uses 35 square feet of leather in a standard jacket.
All in all, there’s one real stumbling block to kangaroo leather that both tanneries and designers agree upon: supply.
“Kangaroo is a wild animal, so the likelihood of some natural defects is much great than it is on a lamb or sheep skin,” Packer says.
While the marks and scratches will never be an issue for a designer – damaged skins won’t make it to market – it does impact on the quantity of leather that tanneries can supply.
“Understanding kangaroo is a big challenge because you have to buy them with the hair on, and you pay a price, and when the hair is taken off, you could end up with a reject because of the damage,” Packer admits. “Just working with kangaroo and understanding it, it’s not easy. It’s one of the most difficult skins, it’s very interesting skin. That’s why there’s not many of us that are prepared to take the risk, I guess.”
Packer Leather is the only remaining tannery in Australia that supplies garment quality kangaroo leather and Packer says the company usually has a small quantity in stock in two different colours. Designers can also place custom orders, which Packer says take an average of six to eight weeks to fulfil.
But the factors impacting on the supply chain are far from static. IBISWorld industry analyst Raghu Rajakumar notes the last five years have seen “an increase in the significance of exotic and fur skins”, including kangaroo. “In part this reflects the difficulties experienced by both cattle and sheep industries, such as drought and quality problems,” Rajakumar says.
He reveals the kangaroo industry has also been characterised since the mid 1990s by a sharp increase in overseas demand for kangaroo meat. This appears to be a good sign for kangaroo leather production, as kangaroo leather and kangaroo meat tend to be a by-product of one another.
In the end, bumps in the kangaroo leather supply chain won’t deter the committed designer, Packer says.
“It just depends if they really want it.”