Is it leather or pleather?

April 6, 2004 9:50 AM

At my company, we just ordered a pallet-load of leather portfolios for the salespeople. But as I was just checking out my sample, I noticed a definite repeating pattern in the grain. Is it possible that this is some kind of recycled leather that gets stamped with a fake grain, or did we in fact just buy portfolios made of pleather?
posted by baltimore to grab bag (2 answers total)

I spent some time as an apprentice to a woman who hand makes hand bags and such. Even really expensive leather can be (and is often) stamped with a grain pattern. There are a number of standard patterns that repeat. This does not mean, though, that your portfolios aren't pleather.
posted by Wolfie at 11:17 AM on April 6, 2004

I'd say sniff one. The last time I checked pleather didn't yet smell like leather.

Ditto what Wolfie said also. I have a very expensive length of apparel wear quality leather sitting in my closet right now, and it has a stamped grain. On this piece, the process used to create the suppleness of the leather removed the grain, and some people like grainy leather (I suppose to make it "look" like leather), so they stamp it. I'd imagine that quite a bit of actual leather grain that you see in products is stamped, as what I recall of watching my grandfather tan skins, it can be hard to keep the original grain during processing on some leather.
posted by Orb at 4:58 PM on April 6, 2004