Learning more about Conceria Walpier's beautiful Buttero.
Whether planning a custom wallet or watchstrap or picking up one of our ready-to-ship leather goods, it’s important to learn the ins and outs of the materials that make their way into each final Left Foot product. Thankfully, our new Better Know a Leather series is here to help. In Better Know a Leather, we take a deeper look at some of our favorite leathers, allowing you to make informed choices when ordering your best handmade wallet, watchstrap or other leather accessory.
In our first installment, we’re starting things off with one of our most frequently used (and forever favorite) leathers: Buttero.
Buttero is a vegetable tanned leather that comes from the Conceria Walpier Tannery in Ponte a Egola, Italy. Founded in Tuscany in 1974, this family-owned business has been producing some of the finest leathers around for over four decades. As one of their most celebrated leathers, Buttero has long been the top choice for crafters, collectors and enthusiasts alike. But what exactly is Buttero?
Before exploring Buttero, it’s important to step back and look at vegetable-tanned leathers as a whole.
Vegetable tanning is the millennia-old process of preserving hides through the use of the naturally occurring tannins found in the bark and leaves of trees, plants and other organic matter. With vegetable tanning, cleaned skins are left to soak in specific proprietary blends of tannins over a period of several months. During this time, the tannins slowly bind to the collagen proteins in the skin, softening the hide and protecting it from moisture and bacterial degradation. After tanning, the leather is dyed, oiled and finished, resulting in the lovely colors and textures that make their way into your favorite wallet, passport cover and other handmade leather products.
Unlike chrome tanning, an alternative chemical-based method of tanning, vegetable tanning is a natural process that results in little waste and produces marvelous leathers with unique character—leathers that age gracefully, typically developing deep patinas with time and use. Vegetable tanned leathers also allow for beautifully burnished edge finishing, something not possible with most chrome-tanned leathers.
The Tuscan region of Italy has a rich history of vegetable tanning, and as members of the Consorzio Vera Pelle Italiana Conciata al Vegetale, a consortium of twenty top local tanneries, Conceria Walpier are among the best natural leather producers in all of Europe. As they lead the way with their much-loved leathers, let’s look specifically at Buttero to find out why it continues to be a treasured veg-tan.
Despite its soft sounding name, Buttero is a semi-firm leather with a smooth surface, vibrant array of available colors and wonderful patina potential. From light, natural shades to saturated blues, greens, burgundies and yellows, Buttero is dyed through for an even tone from top to bottom.
The semi-firm temper of Buttero (a term denoting the flexibility of a particular leather) makes it an excellent choice for products that benefit from a bit of structure, such as wallets, passport holders, watch straps and card carriers. It also means that products made from this leather will maintain a resilience not always afforded by some softer leathers.
Buttero works well throughout a range of weights (or thicknesses) from beefy belt straps to thin wallet interiors. And while the struck-though dyeing and well-finished flesh side of Buttero means it can be lovely as-is, we prefer to line all our Buttero products – typically with Minerva Box, a leather we’ll explore further in a future BKL series – for a bit of contrasting texture and class.
But how does it hold up? Like fine wine, cheese and Lamborghinis, veg-tan leathers age gracefully, and Buttero is no exception. For the king of patina, go au natural, the light shade will darken with use. The light and medium browns follow a similar suit while the vibrant shades take on a character all their own, telling the story of daily life with each and every carry.
When new, Buttero has a natural, light sheen that’s especially present in darker colors. This can increase or decrease depending on how the leather is used and treated. Unlike chrome-tanned leathers, Buttero is susceptible to scratches and moisture, but to a lesser degree than many softer veg-tans, and it heals itself quite well over time and with a good polish.
Our Opinion:
If we had to pick only one leather to work with, it would be Buttero. Appropriate across a wide range of uses, Buttero is the continuation in a long-tradition of quality by a responsible family-owned tannery that, much like the leathers they produce, seems to only get better with age. Pair Buttero with a favorite cordovan or carry it on its own, the enduring legacy of this vibrant leather may only be outlived by the products selected to be made with it.
Choose Buttero as a starting point for any custom products or keep an eye out for it inside many of our ready-to-ship items as they are made available.
