Leather, before the object

In Fes you hear the tannery before you see it. Water being stirred, buckets scraping stone, and a smell that stays in your clothes all day. The vats have been there for centuries, lined up like a palette laid on the ground.

The work starts with lime. The hide soaks until the hair comes away on its own. Then comes the softening bath, then vegetable tanning with mimosa bark and pomegranate, which gives the leather its warm colour and its body.

You do not dye a hide in a hurry. It takes the colour when it is ready, not before.

Craftspeople here do not buy their leather elsewhere. They know it by touch, they know which part of the hide will hold a strap and which belongs in a lining. That sorting, invisible in the finished piece, decides how long it lasts.

The stitching is done with two needles, one per hand, through the same awl hole. A saddle stitch does not unravel when a thread breaks. It takes longer, it costs more, and it is the only reason a bag moves from one shoulder to another over thirty years.

If you visit the tanneries, go early, before the heat, and take someone from the neighbourhood with you. You will see the work rather than the postcard.