Our first Market Intelligence newsletter of the second quarter of the year went live on April 1. It comes at a tense time for the leather sector and for the wider business world, with multiple tariff announcements meaning there is little clarity, for now or for the foreseeable future, on how global trade will go. By Leatherbiz.

The newsletter says clearly that, while the political situation is currently offering plenty of excuses for the difficulties in the leather pipeline, nobody should make the mistake of seeking to present this as the sole cause of those problems.

Fundamentally, leather use is declining because there is no longer enough demand for the material, Market Intelligence insists, arguing that many manufacturers of finished products have little interest in using leather because it places additional production demands on them.

At the same time, it claims some brands and manufacturers have also given in to “a popular view in recent years that they should distance themselves from leather”, while the leather industry itself has “bowed down far too easily to this pressure”.

It goes on: “As a result, we are now faced with a situation in which the total amount of raw material available is much greater than the market for the products that can be made from it.” Ironically, not so long ago, one of the biggest problems in the leather industry was ensuring enough supply of raw materials.

Its conclusion is that there is no need to apologise for presenting leather as a wonderful material, and that the industry needs “a modern strategy to make the material popular with consumers again”.