High fashion tannery: Massimiliano Schiavini tells us how the style of a collection is born

In high fashion, creativity is central. Massimiliano Schiavini, the creative director of Conceria Superior, explains his importance in determining the style of the collections within the leathers for luxury accessories.

Massimiliano Schiavini is the creative director of the Superior Tannery. He deals with defining the style of the collections of the tannery, specialized in the processing of calfskin and sides. Once treated, processed and colored according to the style, the Superior Leathers become the basic ingredient for the creation of handbags and luxury accessories.

Perhaps not everyone knows this, but in a high fashion tannery, the creative process counts for a good 50% of the final product success. “If a collection is mistaken, it is in the interest of customers. -Massimiliano Schiavini explains – If the leather you propose doesn’t impress in some way or does not catch the eye, fashion houses will turn to someone else. ”

Therefore, the choice of style is as important as the technical capacity of the workmanship.

Massimiliano, how do you create the style of a leather collection for accessories?
We have to have a lot of sensitivity to perceive the changes of styles and stylistic needs of who creates fashion products. Whatever industry you need to be in line with to the trends, to the colors and changes of perception, so that it can all be translated into a collection of leathers for handbags and accessories.

What dictates the trend of a season?
there are some trend books that provide the mood, the atmosphere. From these, we can extrapolate the common thread of the type of message we want to give and at this point translate it into a product.

What do fashion houses look for in leather?
they always look for quality, which has to be exalted. Today we work if we make very beautiful things, otherwise one ends up in the abyss of normality and the difference is no longer made. We work with the maisons that make the difference, so we have to be aligned with them.

In practice, how does Superior respond to these needs?
Ours is a tannery of high fashion synonym of excellent, very prepared. Superior responds well because it has very qualified people able to translate the needs of the luxury fashion house into real products. We work high-quality calfskin and sides: we know what the maisons hope to find in our collection and we make sure we are always two steps ahead to offer interesting products to the designers .

Finally, what particularities do the calfskin and sides that Superior deals with have?
They are very difficult to work with. In the calfskin you can see every kind of imperfection and grain: it is a smooth skin that needs very high tanning and finishing process. Without these skills, the risk is to produce a mediocre product.