I happened to be at one of my Indian tanneries not too long ago, when a delivery of ‘wet blue’ arrived.

What is ‘wet blue’?

Wet blue is the term given to leather that has been taken in the raw hide stage and then initially chrome tanned before it goes to the finishing tannery. They then dye it and drum it into something that I want to buy and to make into handbags!

The chrome tanning process turns the skins a sort of blue, hence the name.

Leather Delivery!

It didn’t come by petrol or diesel truck, this one came by cart pulled by a friendly docile bullock. It seems harsh perhaps, to ask an animal to pull a heavy weight in such heat but these animals are workers and are therefore well cared for by their handlers. Here he is being lead to rest in the shade while the tannery guys come to unload the skins from the cart.

I love his red and blue painted horns: don’t they make him look pretty!

Of course, there is another reason that deliveries are made by cart: they move just as fast as the traffic in the narrow streets of the city’s tannery area.

What’s the leather for?

This delivery eventually became my fabulous bright coloured ‘shopper’ leather like the Orange one that was independently reviewed for me.