On a mada bag, leather is not a finishing detail: it carries the handles and takes the friction of everyday use. We use vegetable-tanned shoulder leather, supplied by a family-run tannery in the Vosges, in eastern France. "Shoulder" refers to the part of the hide, "vegetable-tanned" to the way it was tanned, and together they explain why this leather develops a patina over time instead of wearing out.
What "shoulder" and "vegetable-tanned" actually mean
The shoulder is the area of the hide that covers the animal's neck and shoulders. It is naturally denser than the rest of the hide because of the muscles underneath: the animal uses this part of its body constantly, and the collagen fibres organise themselves accordingly. That density is exactly what you want for a handle or the base of a bag, the places that take repeated friction.
Vegetable tanning describes the process rather than the cut. It uses tannins from plants, extracted from bark or wood, which bond chemically with the collagen fibres of the hide to stabilise it. It is a slow process: several weeks, compared with a few days for chrome tanning, which uses metal salts instead of tannins. The result is not just slower to make, it behaves differently over time.
Why it shows with use: the patina
Chrome-tanned leather is chemically stable once the process is over: it stays more or less the same whatever it goes through. Vegetable-tanned leather keeps a degree of reactivity to the tannins it contains: light, the natural oils from your hands and repeated rubbing keep acting on it long after it was made. That is what creates the patina: the leather darkens slightly, firms up and takes on a warmer texture with use. It is not a flaw settling in, it is the process still doing its work years after tanning.
The tannery: a fact you can check, not a sales pitch
The leather on our bags comes from Sovos, a family tannery based in the Vosges since 1864, which works hides from bulls raised in France (Brittany, Normandy) and Germany (Bavaria). We mention it because it can be checked, not because it is rare: REACH compliance, which regulates chemical substances in the European Union, is a legal requirement for all leather sold in France, not a marketing argument. What sets a tannery like Sovos apart is how consistent its shoulder leather is from one hide to the next, more than compliance itself.
Why pair a supple material with a rigid one
Raffia on its own spreads a load well across a whole crocheted surface, but it struggles with a single concentrated stress point, such as the exact spot where a handle meets the body of the bag. Leather is the opposite: its dense fibre structure handles localised, repeated effort very well, but it has neither the lightness nor the texture of raffia over a large surface. Combining the two is not an aesthetic choice: it lets the material that can take the strain carry it, and leaves the other to do what it does best.
Assembly, where the two materials have to work together
Crocheted raffia keeps some give, shoulder leather has almost none: that is what makes joining them delicate, because the seam between the two is the part that works hardest when the bag is carried full. In our workshop near Antsirabe, the raffia crochet and the leatherwork are done by different people, who come together at the assembly stage. From the first row of crochet to the final leather fitting, a bag takes between 19 and 26 hours depending on the model.
Frequently asked questions
Is shoulder leather thicker than the rest of the hide?
Not necessarily thicker, but denser in collagen fibres because of the animal's muscles in that area, which makes it more resistant to repeated abrasion.
Does vegetable-tanned leather handle water well?
Less well than leather treated to be waterproof: vegetable tanning favours strength and patina over time, not resistance to soaking. A brief shower is not a problem, prolonged exposure is best avoided.
Why not use fully waterproof leather, wouldn't it be more practical?
Leather treated to be fully waterproof generally loses its ability to develop a patina and change over time: it is a trade-off between immediate practicality and the character of the material in the long run. We chose the latter.
What does REACH compliance actually mean?
It is a European regulation governing potentially hazardous chemical substances, including in leather tanning. All leather legally sold in the European Union must comply with it: it is not specific to our tannery, it is a requirement for everyone.
mada social bags, updated October 2026.