The earliest trace of tanned hide on this subcontinent comes from Mehrgarh, where tanning was already a craft in practice by around 5500 BCE (Defence Journal, 2022).

By the time of the Indus Valley cities, hides were already worked into footwear, clothing, and storage, a craft old enough to predate most of recorded history (Kulshrestha, Skins Leather, 2025).

Vegetable tanning, the method that uses bark instead of chemicals, has its own clear line in the south.

Tanners near Trichy were already working hide with avaram bark by around 1300 CE, a technique refined in 1847 when a technologist found that myrobalan nut could lighten the tan for export (Khaja Moideen Leather Co.).

By 1856, under British rule, the style had its own name, East India leather, and in 2008 it earned a Geographical Indication tag, official recognition of how singular the technique remains (Business Standard, 2008).

In vegetable tanning, tannins are drawn from bark, pods, and nuts bond slowly with the collagen in the hide, a process that takes weeks, sometimes months (Leather International, 2024), not the few days chrome tanning takes.

What comes out is thick and a little stiff at first. It takes oil and handling the way a person takes experience, darkening with light, softening with wear, developing a patina that belongs to no one else's bag. Cared for, it holds for decades.

Chrome tanned leather, which makes up most of the world's supply today, discharges thirty to forty five percent of the chromium it uses as waste, and resists breaking down once it reaches a landfill (China et al., Chemosphere, 2020).

PU, the plastic often sold as an alternative, fares no better. It comes from petroleum, cracks and peels within a few years, and sheds microplastic long after it is thrown away (The Conversation, 2026).

None of this makes vegetable tanned leather a fully green material. Hides are heavy on land and water no matter how they are tanned. But a bag built to survive thirty years costs the earth less than five bags that do not survive five. Tholé chose this leather for the same reason it chose Pondicherry. Both hold up, quietly, over time.

References


"South Asia Civilizations (Mehrgarh 7000 BC – 2600 BC)." Defence Journal, Feb 2022.


Kulshrestha, Udit. "History of Leather Craft in India: From Royalty to Modern Luxury." Skins Leather, Aug 2025.


"E.I. Tanned Goat Skins." Khaja Moideen Leather Company.


"East India Leather Gets GI Tag." Business Standard, 24 July 2008.


"The Profile of Vegetable Tannins: Properties and Performance." Leather International, Apr 2024.


China, C.R., Maguta, M.M., Nyandoro, S.S., Hilonga, A., Kanth, S.V., & Njau, K.N. "Alternative Tanning Technologies and Their Suitability in Curbing Environmental Pollution from the Leather Industry: A Comprehensive Review." Chemosphere, 254 (2020): 126804.


"Vegan Leather Isn't as Sustainable or Eco-Friendly as Brands Might Claim." The Conversation, 2026.