Sinallar Dericilik San ve Tic Limited Sirketi of Istanbul have four new finished leathers on offer this season. Goat (kid) skins come in a range of colours.
Then there is a sleek, full-grain water buffalo hide: animals here range from 18 to 24 months old and the skins are about 1.1mm thick, with a rich sheen but soft enough to go for upmarket moccasins. Animals are farmed for meat, not milk, so hides have a tighter, extremely supple grain.
Pony skin with hair-on is both novel and authentic for handbags or trims. The hides can be natural hair or dyed different colours or coloured to resemble jungle prints like leopard, cheetah or zebra. They sell at a friendly $4 per sq ft.
The pride of the collection is a superb calf skin which owner, Cengiz Sinal, claims took him eight years to find. Sinal buys only first quality skins and this is a unique, full aniline hide tanned from milk-fed veal calves aged two to three months. Italian luxury-goods producers buy from the same source but are hard pressed to compete with Sinal’s $2.40 per sq ft price tag.
Many of the hides are sold ready-tanned, but Cengiz Sinal often processes skins outside their country of origin. Or, indeed, as raw or wet-blue at one of his own tanneries in the Tuzla district of Istanbul. He sells on the world market and many products never see Türkiye. Sinal were one of the first tanners to maximise the potential for vegetable-tanned baby buffalo hides in 1998.
