Talk:Leather

Genuine leather

There appear to be inconsistent sources on a definition of Genuine Leather. While it is a common stamp on leather goods, it appears to be an ambiguous term. E.g. business insider states:

Goods marked as genuine leather will be several layers of low-quality leather bonded together with glue and then painted to look uniform.

This site states:

Genuine leather is often several layers of split leather bonded together.

which contradicts words also from the site:

Genuine Leather (also called Bicast) Finished split leather is often referred to as “Genuine” leather simply because it’s a marketing person’s strategy designed to fool customers.

It would appear that there's some desire to put 'genuine leather' as a synonym for bicast leather, but that is not well supported by the sources on the page. Are there some other reliable sources? Chumpih ^t 06:06, 06:20, 09:20, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

The only source here that outright mentions bicast calls "genuine leather" a synonym for it. The others describe the process used for bicast leather without using the word, but since it's clearly identical in specification, it's clearly synonymous.

The fact is the label "genuine leather" is, as the sources describe, a case of using the best-sounding term they can legally get away with to label their product. Same thing with using "top grain" as a label. Technically full-grain leather is a subtype of top-grain leather with a less-processed surface (as opposed to corrected-grain leather) and could be labeled as top-grain, but since having the full-grain is considered to have market appeal, a producer wouldn't label such a piece with the broader category. Meanwhile, since mentioning that a piece has a corrected grain sounds less authentic and isn't as appealing to consumers, they use the broader category as it's technically correct without the off-putting term.

Going even broader, anything that uses a whole piece of leather as a base can be labeled as "genuine leather", but using that term for an item that can use the more specific labels mentioned above is poor marketing. So it's only used when no better term is available, that is, for bicast leather, which does (barely) count as being an actual leather-based material, as opposed to ground scraps mixed with a binder and extruded onto a cloth base, which is bonded leather, or a wholly artificial leather. (For all practical purposes, bonded leather is really an artificial leather that uses scrap genuine leather fibers as a filler, but I digress.)

With that all said, there's a reason I had structured the grades section the way I did when I rewrote it in the first place. There's a distinct conflict between the actual technical definitions of the types of leather used in consumer goods and the way they're labeled by producers to make them more sellable. Since NPOV demands that we are not here to act as a marketing outlet for leather makers, I decided to lean on the technical definitions, complete with putting full-grain as a sub-type of top-grain, and intentionally omitting the "genuine leather" label (not grade). Now, I can agree with at least mentioning it, as it is a commonly encountered term, but it is not a distinct type, which is why it doesn't deserve a distinct entry. oknazevad (talk) 14:58, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

None of these are particularly spectacular sources, and there's this ambiguity. Is 'bonded leather' always reconstituted, paper-like? (Plus coatings / backings.) Or would 'bonded' include layers of suede bonded together? Likewise, 'bicast' means coated suede. But do multiple layers of suede, bonded together then coated make 'bicast'? The sources and other articles appear unclear on this - there is no universal definition, as far as I can see. Are there other, superior sources than the ones here?

I agree, we need to give honest descriptions. This shouldn't be a puff-piece, especially in the case of this near-lowest 'grade'.

And re. grading, 'patent' isn't a grade per se, but instead describes leather with a shiny coating. What lies underneath is undefined.

A suggestion: perhaps we break out 'patent' and 'genuine' into a new 'other terms' group? Chumpih ^t 17:46, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

The defining characteristic of bicast leather is that it's completely covered on at least one side with an impermeable coating, which in modern times is a polyurethane or vinyl, but retains the natural fibrous network of a hide. Whether the backing of a piece of bicast leather is from one hide or multiple glued together along the edges or in a stack doesn't change that. Conversely, by definition, bonded leather is made from shredded leather fibers that no longer have any of their original fiber network intact. There's actually some very good sources in the bonded leather article that cover the many types of leather that could and probably should also be used here.

Patent leather belongs under bicast leather as it's just a specific type of it. In fact, the historic use of lacquer coatings (see Seth Boyden) to make patent leather is partly what inspired modern plastic-coated bicast from what I can see. Conversely, there's no distinctive thing called "genuine leather", it's just a marketing term for bicast leather to obscure its composition.

Also, suede is a finished product. The underlying leather taken from the flesh-side of the hide used as a base for bicast leather is called a "split". oknazevad (talk) 00:33, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

The bonded leather sources are not consistent in their terminology, and aside from the gov't ones, would not pass WP:RS. (This one was quite good, but not enough detail.)

Currently I do not have a source which indicates that bicast leather is a canonical term for genuine leather.

Indeed, conducting a google ngram search we see in literature that 'bicast leather' is practically an unused term when compared to 'patent leather', 'split leather' and 'genuine leather'. Google Trends suggests bicast is more common than bycast and 'genuine leather' and 'patent leather' are the popular terms.

Looking at US law on leather description and this guide to tariff codes we see that many of the terms in the article do not appear in these WP:RS sources. Chumpih ^t 04:57, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

The first one is a self-published source and fails WP:RS. Heck, although I cannot be certain because it lacks a date (another strike against it), it reads almost exactly like an earlier version of this article and I'm 90% certain that using it would be WP:CIRCULAR.

The Google ngrams and trends are not helpful. Ngrams looks at all books in Google's library, including novels. Not useful for determining the prevalence of a bit of industry jargon. Trends is little more than a plain Google test. Useful for determining WP:COMMONNAME for article titles, but that's not the question here.

The FTC document is not a law, but a guideline for best practices, and has no enforceability; it's actually described in one of the sources at bonded leather in an article that makes its scope clear. The tariff descriptions use the synonym "laminated leather".

But the fundamental point is that the sources already added to this article (by you, I might add), and at the bicast leather article, use both terms when describing identical products, including statements that they are synonyms. There's no reason to list them separately. oknazevad (talk) 14:05, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps enforceability of a law and it's jurisdiction isn't an issue when it comes to identifying WP:RS. If it's a government agency, then that's a pretty reliable source. I agree, we need to avoid wp:circular, but is there clear evidence that that's the case here? Google ngram etc. are useful for identifying WP:NATURAL, so perhaps it's unfair to disregard. Glad we're agreed that RS important, and yep, the sources I previously cited were mediocre. The tariff doc refer to "patent leather and patent laminated leather"; there appears to be no reference to "laminated leather" other than in the context of "patent", as far as could be seen, and certainly no mention of 'bicast'. But to conclude that similarity of terms means that 'bicast' is canonical is WP:SYNTH at best, and just plain wrong at worst, so unless some evidence is cited that gives precedence to 'bicast', I suggest reversion. Chumpih ^t 20:34, 23:08, 23:14 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Many missing terms

There are loads of leather terms that could do with defining on this page

• pull-up leather
• aniline leather
• semi-aniline leather
• rub-off leather
• pigmented leather
• nappa / napa leather

Perhaps there needs to be a 'Terms' section, alongside 'Grades'. Chumpih ^t 04:13, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Aniline is covered in the full-grain entry; "aniline leather" really refers to the type of dye used (see aniline dye) and is basically a shortened way of saying aniline-dyed full grain leather. Some of these terms are just simple combinations of adjective with "leather" and don't really need a separate mention, but a glossary of leather terms may be helpful for some parts. oknazevad (talk) 13:20, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: You have just reverted an attempt to include the glossary here. Please consider WP:OWN. Chumpih ^t 10:40, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:AGF, but that was a poor insertion, and worthy of reversion - definitely not a case of ownership. I would have removed it as well. I'm not sure that any kind of glossary is really necessary - certainly as per oknazevad, most of the terms are not really a glossary in any case. Perhaps draft up your proposal either in your own draft, or on the talk here? Chaheel Riens (talk) 12:35, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Exactly what I was going to say. It was incomplete and should have been drafted elsewhere first, otherwise it clogs the edit history. And it's not really the right format for this article. As I said in my edit summary, a glossary format belongs in a separate glossary article. oknazevad (talk) 12:44, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

"Genuine Leather" should be changed from two bullets to one bullet

The "Genuine Leather" bullet under the "Grades" section has two bullets. It should be a single bullet. Balsaad (talk) 23:28, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

 Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:01, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 March 2023

There isn't anything about leather types so I prepared a section for it and the In modern cultures doesn't cover much such as leather bags, harnesses, and it is big in a blog post for

I think it might be helpful to add something about the types of leather such as full grain leather top grain leather suede patent leather etc

Plus there are citations missing!

Abdullah-Ibn-e-Akhtar (talk) 01:05, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 01:10, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Cordwain redirects here, but no mention of cordwaining occurs on this page.

Either cordwain needs its own page for real or what it is needs to be defined/described here. 70.51.90.216 (talk) 15:23, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I've shifted the redirect to Shell corovan, which is more accurate. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 15:31, 12 June 2023 (UTC)