WHY LEATHER?
Aside from being beautiful? Real leather is a wonderful investment in a highly cleanable, environmentally friendly, natural and a very durable product.
Cleanability:
Just wipe your leather furniture down with a lightly water dampened cloth to remove dirt and body oils. Every six months use a leather cleaner/protector to nourish the leather and keep it supple.
Durability/ROI:
The durability of leather provides a great return on your investment (ROI). Leather lasts five times longer than fabric. If you’ve invested in a good solid frame, that means you can re-upholster your furniture every 50 years instead of every 10 years. You save on fabric consumption and on labour costs. Stickley only uses cow hides for the leather as they are more durable than other hides.
At Manderley Manor we’ve seen leather chairs from the cottage still beautiful after 100 years!
Natural:
Our cow hides come from many North American, European and South American tanneries. The animals are not killed for their hides, as they originate from the meat industry. Expect some wrinkles, healed scars, stretch marks, insect bites and texture as normal for the animal. Real top grain leather is 12-14% water. This makes the leather acclimate quickly to your body temperature.
Environmentally Friendly:
Stickley leathers last five times longer than upholstry fabrics. REAL leather ages gracefully and warmly: You will love it more as you wear it in, like a favourite leather jacket. It won’t end up as land-fill. Remember that 100 year old chair?
Leather choices:
Stickley’s Everyday leathers are real 100% top grain, hard wearing leathers and very cleanable. They are Semi Aniline dyed with a solid coloured pigment and treated with a protective coating that allows the natural grain and beauty shine through. These leathers are very colour consistent, more stain resistant and more fade resistant that other leather types.
Stickley also provides a variety of other leather styles and colours:
Pure Analine leathers show the natural beauty of any naked hide. They are butter soft. They are also more fragile and offer little protection from stains.
Hand Antiqued; rustic and full of character.
Wax Pull-up; like an old “bomber jacketâ€
Oiled Pull-up; rustic, abused and full of character
Nubuck; unique, exotic and fragile
Tool embossed; specialty leathers – absolutely unique
A word of caution:
Bonded leather; sometimes called “reconstituted” leather is not the whole skin of an animal, but ground-up  bits of hide blended together with adhesives (glue) to form a seamless piece of leather-like material. It cannot be repaired and is not as durable as real leather: it will abrade and crack before you are ready to dispose of it. Stickley DOES NOT use recycled, reconstituted or bonded leather.
This brings me to an environmental aspect. You may send your bonded leather sofa off to the dump in 5 years when it is cracked and shabby.
For more information on leather upholstery characteristics and care visit Stickley’s website: leather FAQ.
