A WORD ON LEATHER & VINYL

Leather is a magic word...To most people it means quality, beauty and something of long lasting value. Yet, there are as many different qualities and price points of leather in the products that you may be considering as there are different prices and types of cars.


GENUINE BONDED LEATHER
This is the least expensive leather option. In fact, it is a man-made product made from an emulsion of scrap leathers. Also be careful you are not fooled. Legally in North America anything made in this grade of leather is supposed to  be marked "Genuine Bonded Leather" but unfortunately is often illegally stamped "Leather" or "Genuine Leather". You usually can tell from the price point offered, which is often less than nicer faux-leather products. Most entry level off-shore items are made in this leather. While we can do custom quoting in this grade of leather, it is not in our catalog of products.

Trevelyan's Avalon Eco-Leather is made from recycled leathers that are bonded together to a rich saddle weight and uses only natural materials in its processing.  Most basic bonded leathers do not wear well, feel luxurious, or imprint well. However, our Avalon premium weight genuine bonded leather from Europe looks and feels beautiful.

GENUINE SPLIT LEATHER
In the tanning process, hides are separated and the thickness split off of the top-grain is a rough piece of actual leather. However, it is only the finish that adds quality to this leather, which in itself has little tensile strength. The strength is added only in the finish, like painting a piece of aprticle board...and that is by adding more and more "polyurethane" in the finish. In fact the finest quality of split leather is called "P.U. Split" which is a thin filament of printed urethane lamenated to the split, so all you see on the finished product is polyurethane but have the pleasure of paying 2.5 times what bonded or all urethane costs.

We are Treveylan do not believe that this is value, and is why we do not offer Split Leathers in our line of products. We feel quality urethane is less costly, and of better value and obviously top-grain leathers are even more so.

Also be careful you are not fooled.  Legally in North America anything made in this grade of leather is supposed to  be marked "Genuine Split Leather" but unfortunately is often illegally stamped "Leather" or "Genuine Leather". You usually can tell from the price point offered, which is significantly less than full-grain or top-grain leathers.


FULL-GRAIN OR TOP-GRAIN LEATHER
There is even a wide range of price points for these premium leathers, depending on hide quality, type of finish, or where the hides originate from. These are the grades of leather you MUST use if you want an item to be used for a long time and retain its beauty and value to the recipient.

This is the luxurious part of an animal hide that has been exposed and strengthened by exposure to the elements. The finishing of quality hides is usually done with a translucent aniline finish that allows you to see the natural variations in the hide itself. These include healed scars, fat wrinkles, and variations on some leathers that are "milled" for a soft natural hand. A quality manufacturer will always cut around open scars or flaws in the leather.

Trevelyan in its "NOTHING TO HIDE" policies has practically completed its committment to supply only leathers tanned by Vegetable tannage, Water tannage, or by tanners that are ISO14001 environmentally approved (as not allowing any effluent to enter in watershed).


FAUX-LEATHERS
Trevelyan uses this expression to cover either its selectinos of vinyl or Polyurethane products. Also in our "NOTHING TO HIDE" policy we are switching these materials to non-PVC based products that do not utilize non-renewable resources.

There are many grades and prices of these as well. Trevelyan searches the world for those faux-leathers that will last the longest and imprint the best. We then make these into stitched products with the same luxurious look as our leather products. They are not the least expensive available and allow us to offer the products made from them with high perceived value and great durability. These are better than the inexpensive "near-leather" products described above.

All of these faux-leathers will not cold-crack as they are not PVC based virgin vinyl.