Bringing Hand Tooled Leather to Life
In the world of industrialization and fast fashion, we value art, we value quality and we value craftsmanship. We value slow fashion, we value keeping traditions alive. Each pair of Mochiis flats are made using the highest quality leather, each inch of the leather is hand-tooled, hand-carved, hand-painted.
Hand-carving or leather tooling is a highly skilled art practiced by a number of leather artists. Hand-tooling requires a number of steps. We would like to demystify the work that goes into each piece. Here are some of the main steps that the leather needs to go through.
- First the carving pattern and design is outlined on a tracing paper
- The carving pattern is transferred on the leather.
- Once the design is on the leather, the artisans start working with the leather. The leather is moistened to make it pliable and ready for carving. Different tools with varied impressions are used to hammer patterns in the leather.
Most of this work is done using a hammer and a tool. The amount of pressure applied while hammering determines the depth of the pattern and the design of the pattern. A highly skilled artisan can get a great effect just by adjusting the depth based on the how the hammer and tools are used.
4. Once done, the leather is ready for painting. Each motif is hand-painted by a painting artistic while being sealed to avoid bleeding and giving the final look to the leather.
Each piece is truly a work of art with hours of artisan time and effort going into it.
