I recently received a few things from a friend, who has recently moved to Morocco in search of creating some very nice reproduction historic goods. Among the items I have received from him are a couple pairs of slippers (a pair for me and one for my wife) and a leather document folio.
These items are amazing. The leather is fantastic, as is the color and craftsmanship. I have only worn the slippers for a short bit but I am looking forward to them as an option as I head to my first historic event of the year in less than a month. One of the coolest things about these goods is how they are being made in about as historically correct a manner is possible today. The following is a quote from a recent post he made:
My dyed leather is currently being done in Marrakech by a privately owned Berber tannery (why its so nice). I worked at the Rabat tannery from November till February and worked along as well as supervised everything going on with my own leather. While there I basically learned everything I could about selection, tanning and processing leather (sheep, cow and goat) along with dying for red and green Moroccan leather. I ended up having to do this as there was nothing available on the open market here that was comparable to historic Moroccan leathers as the tourist trade destroyed the last of the historic tanning dyers in the 1980s. After perfecting the dye formulas in Rabat and finding a indoor tannery (I had to after the tannery was flooded by 1-2″ of rain and everything was destroyed I had worked on) I’m now having my leather vegetable tanned in Marrakech and is now “pit dyed” (it sits indoors in a vat for upwards of a week depending on the color) in stainless steel vats (no longer open pits with dead animal parts, garbage, rain water, etc going into the open air pits) indoors using my dying formulas I worked out in Rabat. This is why the leather is so nice now and there is no longer stuff like pink leather from raining and having the pits diluted or having spotty leather from bird crap going into the pit. Originally this stuff was all done during the dry season here by armies of slaves (seriously, until the 1920s, and ex slaves kept working the tanneries until the 1950s-60s) wading naked in the dye pits continuously and tending to them but I don’t have that luxury. Being the only person in the world doing this stuff (there are a handful of dye pits in Fes, Morocco to show to tourist they throw chrome tan leather in, the s4!t is horrendous) I’m doing my best lol.
I am very impressed with this stuff.
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