Tanning as an art form

Yavuz Group came late to tannery business, catching the crest of the doubleface wave in 1985 when they started exporting raw sheep and lambskins ex-Australia. They rode this wave until its collapse in 1998 but still maintain an office in Sydney. Aware that Turkish leather business would never be the same, they switched to tanning raw Aussie kangaroo skins. 'The first doubleface kangaroo tannery in Türkiye was set up in 2001', Yavuz recalls. Currently Yavuz tan sealskins (the seal season runs approximately April to July). These are mature animals culled under CITES quotas. Sizes average 6 to 7 sq ft and Yavuz' finished pelts are in a class of their own and look and feel like silk. They don't just have a sheen but shimmer with natural health. Yavuz claims he uses no specialised tanning drums, chemicals or processes to achieve his superb results. The secret is playing with genes and altering the infrastructure of the skin. This has eliminated the need for chrome and skins are white (or blanco) tanned using aluminium sulfates. The 10% higher price tag is more than justified by the results. Yavuz explained that chrome plumps up and expands the skin and sticks the grain together making it heavier. But blanco tanning does not touch the hair; so a finished jacket hangs better, looks more natural and is lighter weight. Fundamental to Yavuz' business is scientific knowledge of the genetic structure of skins. He has manipulated genes and transmuted the properties to wet-end skins, giving vastly superior finished results. He has applied and perfected the modification of protein structure in exotic skins like shark, seal and wild and farmed fur-bearing animals. Skins come raw to the tannery in Tuzla and finishing is carried out in-house. Customers are fashion moguls who vie for luxury garment leathers direct from the tannery. Yavuz follows fashion trends 'from the wet-end stage'. After this, the maverick streak is irrepressible: this is no dedicated follower of fashion. Yavuz prefers to wreck fashion etiquette and shock and awe customers by turning seasonal colours and trends on their ear. 'Fashion is about being disruptively different', he insists. Additionally, sealskins are one of the most challenging to tan. Mistakes are costly on a 6 or 7 sq ft skin whose finished piece value runs at about $70 or $80. An average coat uses eight skins and these are graded in just three categories. Specific to Türkiye are problems of a local luxury import tax of 21% on what is more accurately a raw material, plus a standard 18% VAT tax. Yavuz' production of 'exotics' comprises about 25% of business. Australian Merino sheepskins account for the rest and he processes about nine container-loads weekly. Slaughterhouses at source now comply with Yavuz' quality standards. 'Otherwise we don't buy.' Yavuz once dealt with dozens of abattoirs; now three supply the precise quality and grades he requires. The Yavuz Group also have a thriving business in scrap leathers, exporting about 1,000 tons annually of offcuts for small leathergoods to India and China. * Yavuz perfected the technique of turning the fleece of a fully grown sheep into the soft, curly fur of a baby lamb. This, effectively, takes an 8 sq ft mature sheepskin and gives it the velvety, lustrous effect of a tiny 1.5 sq ft Persian lambskin - karakul or astrakhan. He does this through genetic engineering and tweaking proteins in the skin. He gives his customers a great competitive advantage, selling at about $25 per piece, about the same price as a diminutive karakul fetches Commodity market With only a handful of producers, a quota on seal culling and the general secrecy associated with prices and markets, Leather International asked Hatem Yavuz about the stability of sealskin prices. 'I am extremely conscious of keeping the market stable and not rocking the boat on false highs. I can create a market just by giving an order but, worse than increasing my own prices, if the market turns out to be artificially inflated on false hopes, then it falls more heavily. We have been down this road before in Türkiye with doubleface. 'In actual fact, what happens is that sellers or cullers offer me their products when they are available. This means we can maintain an equilibrium and avoid creating a market.' Seal Specifics The Pinnipedia or pinnipeds are classified into three families: the Phocidae - seals (earless or true seals); the Otaridae (eared seals and sea lions) and the Odobenidae (walruses). There are over thirty species of seal. True seals are divided into two subfamilies: the Phocinae, found mainly in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, and the Monachinae, which live around the South Pole. These seals all have streamlined bodies and no protruding ears. They use their back flippers to move through the water and swim rather like a large fish. They are cumbersome on land. Yavuz Group are one of four companies in the world who process seal skins. Others are in Norway, Greenland and Canada. The latter country tans under sub contract for a Norwegian company. The Canadian government gives subsidies to the seal industry, still regarded as part of Canada's 'heritage'. Canada exports sealskins to Norway, China, Denmark and Taiwan. Companies producing sealskins each tan about 100,000 skins per year. Yavuz' capacity is under half of this at present but his innovative streak has gained him acceptance.