Last year, Mahmut Yesil, one of the managing partners of Yesiller Deri, opened a branch office in Barcelona with a Spanish-based leather professional. Yesil wanted to have more hands-on involvement in selecting his entrefino/merino raw lambskins for his Istanbul tannery. This tanner shuns buying raw skins over the phone.
Recently, Yesil was surprised and delighted to find that Spaniards were asking for his finished leather lambskins for garment production. A trial order for 100,000 sq ft was so successful that he plans to double exports to this market.
‘I really hadn’t factored in the demand for finished garments made from local (Spanish) leather’, he mused. The tannery imports 600,000 raw lambskins per year and 4-5 million finished skins go for garment leather. Quality is corporate mantra. High performance overrides expanded capacity every time and skins are meticulously tanned over a 21-day period. ‘If you shorten the process’, Yesil explained, ‘quality starts to wane’.
