Vegetable Tanned Leather
YTN №7 is an independent leather house in Islington, London. Natalie Redol founded the brand in 2015 and constructs every piece by hand — bags, backpacks, small leather goods and jewellery, sold directly at ytn7.com. This page is about how our leather is tanned, and who tans it.
Vegetable tanning works tannins from tree bark and other plant matter slowly into the hide — the process takes weeks, sometimes longer, against a single day for chrome (chemical) tanning, which is how roughly 80–90% of leather in the world is made today.
Both methods use chemistry — there's no way to remove the microorganisms from a hide without it, or it simply rots — but vegetable tanning needs less of it, and the process itself is gentler. In Natalie's words, this leather stays "alive" and ages beautifully, while chrome-tanned leather eventually feels "empty".
Made for us, not bought off the shelf
Our leather comes from Conceria Maryam, a small family-run tannery in Santa Croce sull'Arno, Tuscany. We don't buy finished leather from a catalogue — it is developed and tanned to our specification, for us, to order.
We've visited the tannery ourselves — a small team, completely open about how they work, nothing hidden. What matters to Natalie is that the leather-making craft in Santa Croce sull'Arno is still a living, working tradition, not something you read about in a museum. The people there were open and easy to talk to — a business, but not a hard-edged one, more a place that respects its own work. And a small, private pleasure: sometimes it turns out that brands Natalie personally admires use the same tannery — never the goal, but satisfying to notice the taste overlaps in the material too, not just the aesthetic.
A note on chrome tanning
Before 2022 we occasionally used chrome-tanned leather. We no longer do — everything we make now is vegetable-tanned. If you own an older piece and it has lost colour, the care guide covers how to restore it.
How it ages
Over time the leather darkens and takes on a glossy patina wherever it's handled most, and may show a crease at fold lines — but it cracks far less than chrome-tanned leather if it's looked after at all. It isn't afraid of water or rain, same as the horse leather — just don't put it through a washing machine.
