Blog

Leather vs. “Vegan” Leather

Many of us are already familiar with the numerous key advantages of leather from sustainability and durability standpoints. If not, please feel free to take a deeper dive into the subject with our Leather Sustainability post. In short, genuine leather is a by-product of the meat and dairy industries, it lasts long and wears in with time and use and will eventually biodegrade in a landfill if and when it is discarded.

Who hasn’t seen leather used in all the traditional ways? Upholstering Chesterfield sofas, elegant lounge chairs, banquettes in steakhouses. These are all classic applications and for a good reason! They look sophisticated, feel luxurious and boast exceptional sustainability and durability. At Jamie Stern, we love leather and we love these timeless uses. 

Located on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, the Moody Center is a new 15,000+ seat venue that hosts a variety of sports, entertainment and family events. The stadium is home to both the women’s and men’s basketball teams and attracts top acts from every popular genre of music.

As we head into 2023, we wanted to take a moment to look back at the past year and all of our exciting endeavors. We were fortunate enough to work on many inspired projects, collaborate with some amazingly talented architects and designers and introduce a great deal of new products that we are truly proud of.

Below are just a few of the highlights from the past twelve months.

First of all, why design a custom leather? Interior designers come to us with custom leather requests for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a leather is out of stock, discontinued or just too expensive. Sometimes they need a more durable version with extra protection for a high-traffic area. Sometimes they have a specific vision for a leather but it doesn’t seem to exist.

Whatever your reason may be, creating a custom leather shouldn’t be a daunting process. At Jamie Stern, we believe it should be an engaging, hands-on experience that puts the designer in the driver’s seat.

Whether you’ve worked with us before or are exploring the world of custom leather for the very first time, our team of experienced project managers and artisan leather finishers will help you bring your vision to life in the form of a beautiful leather sample (or strike-off). The kicker? This process is complimentary and only takes one week!

Jamie Stern’s unwavering commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility is an essential company-wide value that informs all of our decisions and practices. Our leather division in particular champions eco-friendly sourcing, tanning, finishing and shipping to ensure that our leathers are as green as possible from start to finish. Reducing our overall carbon footprint while still offering unprecedented pricing, flexibility and quality is certainly not the easiest of endeavors, but it is the one we are most proud of.

2021 was an exciting year for everyone at Jamie Stern Furniture, Carpet & Leather. In many ways, it was our best year ever. We launched a number of incredible new products, collaborated with some wonderfully talented designers on unforgettable collections, and contributed to countless amazing projects in the hospitality, corporate and residential markets.

At Jamie Stern, we strive to facilitate the design process by enabling absolute creative freedom and viewing all of our clients as true collaborators. Whether they are interested in standard or custom products, specifying furniture, carpet or leather or are coming to us with a large or small project, we pride ourselves on working closely with designers and architects to ensure that specifying their design materials is not only seamless and efficient, but also engaging and fun!

When selecting a leather for upholstering furniture, many designers often base their selection off color and color alone. This may appear as a logical jumping-off point, but this decision can lead to issues down the road. We would like to provide a few pointers to help you select the correct leather for your project. Understanding the following four terms will allow you to fully comprehend the nature of nearly all leather products and enable you to make an informed selection.