Introducing Great Britain's Billy Tannery
Local craft is a wonderful thing and whether you are a backpack wearer (since high school, we mean) or not, the leather goods by Billy Tannery are certainly ones to behold. A must-have for any season, the trusty backpack has certainly seen a resurgence in popularity over the years and owing to Billy Tannery, there comes a fantastic ethical A-side. Aiming to revive local tanning knowledge of what was once considered an entirely wasted food by-product into these beautiful, sustainable goat leather goods, Billy Tannery are a brand who are proud owners of their own Northampton (UK) based microtannery. Entirely designed and made in Britain, goat leather is such a unique material and the brand has launched itself in direct response to wanting to overcome such a waste conundrum.
As Billy Tannery explains, every year thousands of British goat hides go to waste and this often includes just being destroyed forever. With Britain boasting many manufacturing towns like Northampton having former leather industries that are all now largely redundant, Billy Tannery came to the conclusion that their own tannery was in fact needed to be formed in the face of a lack of remaining resources to tan any goat hide whatsoever. By way of Circular Economy principles, Billy Tannery are able to manufacture sustainable leather from waste, and located in an area where the micro-brewery fashion began it's humble beginnings, are the aspirations of Billy Tannery and it's microtannery ambitions to follow suit?
As founder Jack Millington explains, "We tan in small batches of around 100 skins, which limits our manufacturing to small production runs and allows us to craft higher quality, environmentally friendly leather."
Photography credit : Billy Tannery