All about leather!

Think of Leather as pure pleasure whether you wear it, look at it or just smell it, we have been covering ourselves with it for a long, long, time, back to the days of whenever. If you told a caveman he couldn't wear it because of environmental reasons, he probably would have used a wooden club on you...that's a joke. For him it was warmth in the winter, protection and a means to bargain for those little life maintenance necessities like trading a hide for food. In more modern times, leather skins are processed through a tannery process that alters permanently the skin's protein structure.This means the processed skin has greater durability, makes for a way to add coloring, and is less likely to decompose. There are still probably those of you out there doing a bit of trading.  Need new boots, handmade hand bags, vests to wear, wallets, belts, gloves, other leather clothing, then you can't go wrong at Visitor's Flea Market, 5811 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy in Kissimmee where you can have made leather items for your tastes, or acquire already handmade wear just for you. But, so you know about those efforts that go into leather production it takes about two days or at least six hours to degrease, desalt and water soak hides. Hold your nose when you take a trip to a tannery. It is strong, so much so, it is a trade that was usually allowed only outside of town. Orlando/Kissimmee does not to our knowledge have a tannery, but we do make leather top of the line leather goods. Tanning comes from an old German word tannin, the word for fir trees or oak from where the compound was made. Tanners used  a newly adopted solution of chromium solution. That was during the Industrial Revolution. This, in case you are wondering, came after the caveman period and use of wooden clubs.  Leather really prefers cow hides when the leather-man gets hold of it, but the choice of leather is its your own sweet choice menu. Cow hides preferred, but then there's alligator and crocodile or snake, goat and the most preferable of the fish leathers salmon. How about little piggie (hog) and deer, other. All of them treated with enzymes for softening.  In Florida or live here, it is a great time to turn onto a little something leather. Florida can be strange on its own, but wearing a little something leather can create a bit of a different tropical paradise called  Florida leather weather. You can smell it in the air.     

Check out a custom leather shop located right here at Visitors Flea Market!