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Leathersellers’ Review 2024–2025
Opposite: Gabriel Oladapo, Kingston School of Art MA student, demonstrating leather joint designs
Having access to this donated leather has fired the creativity and opened the door of opportunity for the students.
buy it their ability to experiment wouldn’t be as free. If you can take that out of the equation, you release them to be more expressive,” he explains. “I was encouraging them from the beginning to make – to get it on the bench – understand the material more, play with it and a form will start to evolve from it”. Access to leather has positively impacted module delivery and supported a circular approach to working and thinking about the material. “In the past, when students have used leather, it’s been less experimental and expansive, and they are learning how their work connects to a UK-based industry,” says Weatherhead. Ting Wan Hsu, a student from Taiwan with a background in material science engineering, enrolled on the MA course to explore furniture design. Hsu didn’t think about working with leather initially, but was inspired by Amberg’s use of it. Hsu used vegetable-tanned leather and techniques borrowed from metal workshops, like bead rolling, to shape sculptural seats inspired by human gestures and opera performance. “I never really had a chance to get to work with this material, which is why when we got the donation, I chose it. It opened up my interest in leather,” says Hsu. “It made me understand how precious this material is and the value of it. It made me think about the target audience – who I’m designing for.” In the future, Hsu hopes to apply her newfound leatherworking skills to design table objects, building a brand that creates artistic, functional products. Like Hsu, Kam Liang, who studied industrial design in Guangzhou, China, hadn’t worked with leather before arriving at Kingston, but the opportunity of getting hands-on with this material was invaluable for learning about leather and its qualities. Liang created a multi-tiered leather sitting structure, supported by leather straps and a wool filling. “It made me think, why couldn’t I utilise the flexibility and tensile strength of leather – which is different from other materials – to create my design?” says Liang. “I chose to work with suede because it’s flexible and soft; I really wanted to show these natural qualities instead of using a stiffer leather to create shape.” Having the surplus leather to experiment with was also beneficial to Joe Jackson, who previously studied product design in Manchester before enrolling at Kingston. For the MA course Jackson made a range of sculptural leather
One of the institutions to benefit from the project this year is Kingston School of Art, Kingston University, situated in the picturesque south-west London borough. The long- established school runs courses across all creative disciplines, from fashion and furniture design to fine art, creative writing and architecture. For this year’s Product & Furniture Design MA at Kingston, students were briefed to explore a single material, process or technology to inspire design innovation and consider renewable, surplus and waste materials in the process. A range of materials were offered, including leather from the Surplus Leather Project. Out of 28 students, 15 chose to work with leather in some form. “The students were looking at the material from animal rearing all the way through to design applications,” explains Course Leader David Weatherhead, whose design career includes working with The Conran Shop, Ettinger and MADE.com. “The design approaches of the cohort are varied, and conversations about making extend to the ethics of leather – the lifecycle of the material, repair and upgrade and whether it’s going back into the ground. Surplus is a big part of this.” Students also benefited from the mentorship of veteran leather goods designer and Leatherseller Bill Amberg, who provided support to the students through design critique, visits to his leatherworking studio and donations of additional leather to the students. Despite his vast experience in the field, Amberg was impressed by the ingenuity of what came off of the students’ workbenches as a result of the access to the surplus leather. “It’s so exciting to see how they’ve interpreted it in their own unique ways. One student has done some really interesting scoring and boiling of leather, which was an accidental product of innovation, which is cool because I like the idea that from accidental experiments, something evolves into a product,” observes Amberg. “There’s also another student knitting with leather, and then heating and wet- moulding it. They’re mashing up techniques and something comes of it.” For Amberg, having access to this donated leather has fired the creativity and opened the door of opportunity for the students. “Any nervousness with young designers is around cost and then availability of materials. If they had to
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