A surprising share of the pieces that reach our repair bench are damaged by maintenance rather than by use. Vegetable-tanned leather is easy to look after, as long as you do less than you think you need to.
Do less than feels necessary
The instinct with leather is to clean it. But a vegetable-tanned hide that has been worn for a month is not dirty, it is developing a surface, and that surface is partly the leather reacting with your own oil. Wiping it away resets the clock.
- Dust with a dry, soft cloth. That is the whole weekly routine.
- Wipe marks with a barely damp cloth and let the hide dry on its own, away from heat.
- Feed it once or twice a year with a neutral balm, applied in a thin coat and buffed off.
- Let it rest. Store it out of the bag you carry it in, so it is not pressed flat.
Products that will cause real damage
Shoe polish, saddle soap with pigment, and household sprays are the usual culprits. They deposit colour that does not age with the hide, so the shoe and the wallet end up a slightly different colour, permanently.
- Anything labelled shoe polish or leather wax with a strong pigment.
- Alcohol-based cleaners and sanitiser spray.
- Direct heat: radiators, car dashboards, hair dryers.
- Long storage in a sealed plastic bag, which traps the moisture that causes mildew.
If a product leaves a mark you cannot wipe off, it does not belong on vegetable-tanned leather.
What counts as damage worth repairing
Stitch loosening, a torn lining, a bent hardware plate and a worn-through fold are all repairable in the workshop, usually for less than the cost of a replacement. Peeling or cracking coating on a corrected-grain split is not, because there is no usable layer underneath.
Send us a photograph and the year of the piece before you assume it is finished. We would rather re-stitch something you have owned for a decade than make you buy again.
Something not right? Send it back.
Two-year legal warranty, and we will look at a repair well before that whenever the leather is worth saving.
Returns and warrantyJérémy Dubé
Founder, Dubai workshop
Trained in footwear and hardware design, then in leather at Hermès. Started stitching wallets at night in 2010 and never really stopped.
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