“What a beautiful vegetable tanned leather, this is the “classic vacchetta“. This is one of the comments that I appreciate most when I show the result of the hard work, but above all, of the passion and attention used in the tannery. I appreciate it if people say that it is beautiful, but nowadays the beautiful and the ugly are such broad and subjective categories that include or exclude quality products along with others of little value. What I really appreciate is when people call our vegetable tanned leather, the classic vacchetta. The words that I appreciate are both classic and vacchetta. I am always amazed that vegetable tanned leather is still referred to with the name vacchetta. But, maybe, the reason why the term “vacchetta” is used all these years is due to the fact that it is associated with that very important adjective of “classic”.
Vacchetta and that “classic” flavor
Today, people are more and more obsessed with modernity and avant-garde items. There is a continuous research for the new thing and we see a tendency to fill the market with many kitsch objects. To avoid this tendency, we think that the only salvation is to look for the “classic”. But what is the classic? What does classic mean? We could open a huge parenthesis on the meaning of the term and its etymology, but this is not the right place, we do not wish to philosophize or want to become boring. However, it can be said, briefly, that “classic” refers to the concept of “history” (and tradition?) and so also to the culture behind the object to which it is associated.
Thinking about the “vacchetta”, then, the fact that is “classic” means a lot. If, in everyday speech, it is usual to use the term “classic” for vegetable tanned leather and vacchetta, it means that over the years it has become recognized as an immense value thanks to three main factors: the history of the place, because the classic vacchetta has always been produced in Tuscany; the type of production necessary to create vacchetta which is the vegetable tanning process; the look, the smell and that mixture of unmistakable sensations that have made classic vacchetta so immediately recognizable over time.
Once, I saw a movie called “The September Issue” in 2009. In this Movie, Anne Wintour, editor of Vogue America, said: “Fashion does not look back, it always looks forward“. So if we think of these words, some people could consider any “classic” and so also the classic vacchetta as opposed to fashion, not contemporary, not good for the fashion market. But what do you mean by Fashion? If you mean Fashion as an ephemeral and fleeting process that involves only the “here and now”, in the belief that the new is always better than what came before, we are proud that classic is not good for the fashion market.
But what we really think is that vacchetta and vegetable tanned leather products are always in fashion, they cannot be out of fashion. Do you know why? Because they are classic. If you really want to find something current, something always present, never old, never over and even contemporary, you turn to the classics.
Why buy something classic?
If the fashion of the moment leads us to buy items that are cool and trendy today, we have to say that these same items are destined to be absorbed by the strict cycle of fashion. Soon they will be consumed and rejected out of boredom or because they won’t be trendy anymore, Sooner or Later those items without quality, without tradition, those items that are not classic will be already “out” for fashion.
When, instead, you look for something classic and classic as vacchetta, classic as a bag, a wallet, or any other object made with Vegetable Tanned Leather Made in Tuscany, you choose something that is always of value, always contemporary, always in fashion.
Choosing vegetable tanned leather, choosing the classic vacchetta means appreciating the values of a place, the hard work and the sweat of generations of people who have kept alive that place thanks to their work. Choosing Vegetable Tanned Leather Made in Tuscany means respecting and enhancing tradition and culture, because you want something not “off-beat”, not “anti fashion”, but always in fashion, always up-to-date, always timeless. This is why I love when they call Vegetable Tanned Leather Made in Tuscany – the “Classic Vacchetta”, because to us classic is what we really need today. Classic, as Marc Fumaroli wrote, “is a light that does not change; it is a constant and trusted reference. It is time that triumphs over time, that one thing, which, nowadays we have become so poor.”
