The Tannery at São João da Madeira

The tannery at São João da Madeira has been working vegetable leather since 1949. The process takes twelve weeks. The leather that emerges is not a commodity. It is the material from which the Vault is cut.

Vegetable tanning is the old method. Chromium tanning is the industrial one. The difference, in practice, is this: chrome-tanned leather is soft and consistent from day one. Vegetable-tanned leather is stiff, dense, and borderline resistant on first handling. It needs to be worked in. It has a memory.

The hides we use are full-grain calf — the outer layer, unsplit, with the grain intact. This is the most demanding specification available. Every mark the animal carried, every variation in the hide, is visible. We ask for it because we want the leather to show the world it came from, and then to show the world it is travelling into.

The tannery is not a supplier. They are collaborators who have been working in this way for longer than most of their customers have existed.