📖 Craft & Story · 🕐 Reading time: 4 min. · 🏷 Craft & Process
A KATAAB piece does not carry a serial number. Every wallet, every case starts as a piece of leather – and ends as something you will use daily for years. What happens in between is why it lasts so long.
The Material at the Start
No piece is created without a conscious material choice. KATAAB exclusively uses vegetable-tanned full-grain leather from tanneries in Italy.
Vegetable Tanning
What it Means
The leather is slowly tanned with plant extracts – a process that takes weeks. The result is a leather that is firmer than chrome-tanned material, develops a patina, and is biodegradable. It smells of real material. It feels better over time, not worse.
Full-Grain Leather
The Surface
The grain layer remains completely intact – no sanding, no coating. Scars, veins, natural color differences: this is not a defect. This is the animal the leather comes from. No KATAAB piece looks exactly like another.
The Steps – What Really Happens
From selection to the finished piece. No step is decorative.
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Cutting
Each part is cut by hand from the leather, following a pattern. The position on the hide determines: shoulder areas are denser, belly areas softer. For wallets, only the best part of the hide is cut.
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Edge Preparation
Before sewing, all edges are marked with a groover so that the seam sits evenly. The edges are beveled and smoothed with beeswax – not painted, not taped.
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Sewing
KATAAB pieces are saddle-stitched: two needles, one thread, crisscrossing through each opening. The seam holds if one stitch breaks – not because of it. For an average slim wallet: about 200 stitches, done by hand.
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Gluing and Fixing
Layers are fixed with leather glue before being sewn. Not as a substitute for the seam – as preparation. So that everything sits exactly before the needle is applied.
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Care Before Delivery
Each piece is treated with natural leather grease after sewing. First care, before it even leaves the workshop.
Why This Approach
There are faster methods. Machines cut more precisely than hands, machines sew faster than saddle stitching. But machines cannot decide which part of the hide is suitable for which piece. And machine stitching does not last as long.
This is the compromise: slower, more expensive, but better.
The Ethos Behind the Leather
"I brought the piece back after two years because the edge was worn. Seiha re-worked the edge in ten minutes – no comment, no extra charge." — Customer, Berlin
Repairable means that a flaw does not mean an end. That's the difference between an item you own and one that owns you.
Discover the Entire Collection
Every KATAAB piece is made in Berlin, from the same materials, following the same process. To the collection → · Materials & Care →
KATAAB · Berlin