Leather Hunting In Tokyo

Searching the world for unique leather combines many of my favorite things. Leather, history, and travel.

I hop around the world attending leather tradeshows and touring tanneries and showrooms to find the coolest leather for my work.

    I like the unique leathers. The weird colors. The strange dye techniques, the colorful finishes. If you want boring, plain black BDSM gear, then there are a million other artisans to go to. My work is for the people whose ego doesn’t take a hit because someone touched them with a pastel. But it’s also for people to whom the feel of the leather is important. I make sensory implements. Therefore, how the leather feels is most important. 

       I’ve been to Japan a few times now, and it is one of my favorite countries to hunt leather in. My strategy is this; I go during the Tokyo International Leather tradeshow. The tradeshow takes up multiple floors, but I'm concerned with two of them. The floor featuring all the Japanese tanneries, and the floor featuring tanneries from other parts of the world. 

I hit the Japanese tannery floor first, take pics of things I like (with permission), maybe ask a few questions, but what I'm really after are showroom locations because most of the tanneries on display have showrooms in Tokyo. Then I hit the floor with tanneries from other parts of the world and check in on my buddies there representing some of the other tanneries I work with, see if they’ve put out anything new.

Then I leave.

All this takes about 2 hours tops. Why the in and out? Because this isn’t what I’m here for.

     Here’s the thing about hunting unique leather. Tanneries often produce showpiece leathers that display the prowess of their tanning, but aren’t what they aim to sell. They are usually super limited in stock. The sales guys at the tradeshow are going to try and talk me into their standard runs. I get it. That's their focus because it's what makes sense for most manufacturers. Most people at these shows are shopping for production lines and the leathers I like would be a nightmare for large scale production. 

Also, the leather on the racks at a tradeshow isn't for sale. They're display items. You dont buy hides at these shows, you build relationships for future large scale orders.

But I’m here for the weird showpiece stuff. 

So I cut out the middlemen. Cuz you know who will help me dig through the shelves and pull out the one offs? The ladies in the showrooms. And while all the sales guys are at the tradeshow shmoozing, I have them all to myself.

    Many tanneries in Japan have showrooms in the same district. Back in ye ancient times, tanneries were relegated to this part of Tokyo near the river due to zoning laws. Nowadays, the tanneries (where the leather is actually made) are no longer in the city, but the showrooms (where leather is sold) are. Many are in the same buildings the tanneries used to be in. If you’ve ever been to Tokyo Skytree, you’ve been really close.

     Armed with a smile, my most polite konichiwa, google translate, and photos of things I like at the tradeshow, I hit one showroom after another. The sales ladies of Tokyo are amazing. They will brave any high shelf, move any obstacle, climb through any leather mountain, to find me multiple colorways of what I’m asking for. The prices are fair and documented, theres no haggling, and at the end they wrap it up all nice and tight with a good shoulder strap. 

Some of the very nice ladies were concerned about my ability to carry these massive leather caterpillars, monuments to my hubris and their packing efficiency. I boldly assured them I have the blood of MexiCANS, not MexiCANTS. Google translate wasn’t going to help me with that one, so it didn’t allay their concerns at all. There was one lady who spoke English. I’ll let her try to sort that one out for them.

This hunting process takes multiple days. And there are small leather shops I stop in that don't have booths at the tradeshows. These are small leathercraft shops that carry leather from all over. Similar to a Tandy in the US. 

   They carry leather unique to that side of the world, and tools that can usually only be obtained via the internet in the US. I would say Japan is near the top of the list for high quality tools for those into hand stitching. Awls, chisels, punches, knives, specialty threads, etc. Japan seems to have maintained a respect for artisanry that is being lost in the age of industrialization and AI. This respect is shown in the quality and craftsmanship that goes into the tools they make.

      You can also find crazy things like this. This sculpture is made entirely of rawhide and it was one of many just hanging out around this shop.

All the leather I brought back from Japan will be used in the June 14th 2026 Private Collection.

 

In this coming collection I will be bringing in some new designs inspired by the leather itself, some twists on items from history that I've found in my deep dives into mythology of the middle east and North Africa, and my usual obsessions with skulls, skeletons, and my enternal drive to make things that look pretty and innocent but have great capacity for pain.

To learn how to access the Private Collection you can Click Here.

These collections drop only once or twice a year and contain items that can only be found in these collections. 

As a bonus if you made it this far;

One of the leather shops had a temporary exhibit of historic Japanese armor. Most of it is display, as in this isn't what would be worn into battle realistically, but for ceremony, theater, and sheer whimsy. It does accurately showcase how some armor was made during the Edo period, and later periods.

Tell me you wouldn't be kind of freaked if you saw this guy coming at you with a sword. I would be freaked.