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Made especially for you

Tailored to your exact measurements and preferences; ensuring a flawless fit and an deeply personal expression of style.

Yes, this is a cult. One excessively devoted to redefining luxury - born of the belief that it's about more than just appearances – it's about making a positive impact.

Mission

To offer discerning consumers an elevated experience through artisan-crafted leather accessories, meticulously created from the finest vegetable-tanned leather. Rooted in sustainability and transparency, each piece embodies unmatched quality, timeless design, and a commitment to ethical craftsmanship.

At the heart of this small business is a dedication to timeless craftsmanship, ethical practices, and a sustainable process.

  • Craftsmanship: Honoring the artistry of leatherwork by creating each piece with skill and the utmost care, to ensure it stands the test of time and may be treasured and enjoyed for decades.

  • Conscience: Every piece is a labor of love, hand-crafted by a highly skilled artisan, using rigorously and thoughtfully sourced materials to ensure no human being is suffering or exploited in it's creation.

  • Sustainability: Providing pieces produced with a focus on eco-conscious practices and materials that prioritize the environment at every step. 

  • Integrity: Operating with unmatched transparency, empowering you with the information needed to know not only what you're buying, but what you're supporting.

Values

Process

Deliberate consideration at every step:

  • Only responsibly tanned leather is sourced to ensure the tanning process implements the highest standards for environmental and human concerns. All vegetable tanned pieces originate from family-run tanneries located in the Tuscan tanning district, and are member tanneries of Pelle Conciata al Vegetale in Toscana, which sets forth strict regulations that all member tanneries must adopt. All leather is produced exclusively from by-product hides - no animal was killed for it's hide.

  • Leather is obtained from trusted U.S. based distributors to reduce transport emissions.

  • Design that seeks to meld modern detail with timeless silhouettes, deliberately eschewing trends in favor of a more enduring form.

  • Hand-crafted, down to each and every stitch, by a skilled artisan from start to finish - made especially for you, according to your measurements and preferences to produce a perfectly fitted, unique expression of your style.

  • Using a made-to-order model, excess stock and the resulting waste are completely eliminated. When pieces are removed from the current offering, the sample piece produced for photography is sold in periodic sample sales.

  • Pieces are carefully packaged using recyclable materials (while providing a truly luxurious unboxing experience).

They don't make them like this anymore...but the Cult is bringing it back, providing an option that is so much more than an accessory: each a thoughtful statement of ethical luxury and timeless style, crafted for those who aspire to live a more harm-free lifestyle.

The alternative:

Whether you're paying a little or a lot, with fast fashion and luxury alike, the ugly truth is...

  • 90% of leather produced today is chrome tanned - a method developed in the mid-1850s to speed up the process of leather tanning. The process involves soaking the hide in chromium salts, which reduces the process to just a day or two. Being cheaper, as well as less time and labor intensive, it has largely replaced vegetable tanning, despite the latter's superiority in it's longevity and it's ability to grow more beautiful with age.

  • Chrome tanning is done worldwide, but is concentrated in places like Bangladesh, India, and China, where labor and environmental regulations are lax. The process can be largely automated and completed by unskilled workers, creating the perfect conditions for labor exploitation. Without safety equipment, workers are exposed to harsh chemicals and toxic vapor, resulting in everything from painful skin sores to cancer.

  • Due to lax regulations and enforcement, untreated wastewater is often dumped directly into waterways, causing massive environmental harm. Communities both near and downstream of these tanneries also suffer as a result; poor water quality affects local agriculture and can cause respiratory problems, infertility, and birth defects.

  • ​Nearly all commercial brand items are produced on an assembly line, often in the global south where labor is cheaper - â€‹especially in places like Bangladesh, India, China, Vietnam, and Indonesia - so cheap in fact that of the estimated 75 million factory workers employed by the industry worldwide in 2024, less than 2% earn a living wage. The industry disproportionately affects women, who make up 80% of garment workers, subjecting them to unsafe working conditions, exhausting hours, wage theft, and gender based discrimination, harassment, and abuse.​

Luxury brand items are also produced in these factories, often alongside their fast fashion counterparts,

for minimal pay despite the sky high prices demanded by the brands.

  • The industry has changed over the past few decades, fashion brands have shifted their supply chains to maximize profit margins at the expense of workers. Complex supply chains stretch across multiple countries, resulting in huge transport emissions. It also provides 'plausible deniability' for brands, who outsource labor with minimal oversight - all while demanding unrealistic turnaround times and the lowest prices possible -  and then claim ignorance when horrible conditions are discovered. (*ahem* Dior in December of 2024 according to Reuters).

  • The majority of luxury brands today are part of huge conglomerates, like LVMH, the multinational holding company that's now behind brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Tiffany & Co,, and Sephora - just to name a few.

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©2023 by Culte du Cuir

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