The Turkish leather industry is one of the oldest continuously operating manufacturing traditions in the world. The atelier sources every hide from it. This is the history that produced the leather behind every Belgin Francis piece.
The deep origins
Leather tanning in Anatolia predates most of the empires that have governed the region. Archaeological evidence places organized leather production in central Anatolia at least three thousand years ago; the techniques refined during the Hittite and later Byzantine periods established many of the principles that still govern Turkish tanning today — slow processing, careful selection of hides, and the use of plant-derived tannins drawn from the oak and sumac native to the region.
What made Anatolia unusually well-suited to leather production was a combination of climate, raw materials, and geography. The grasslands supported large pastoral economies producing high-quality hides; the mineral-rich water sources allowed for clean processing; the oak forests provided abundant vegetable tannins; and the location at the crossroads of Asia and Europe made the finished leather easy to trade in every direction.
The Ottoman period
By the late Ottoman period, Turkish leather had achieved the reputation that, in modified form, it still carries today. The Saraçhane district of Istanbul — the name itself translates roughly to “saddler's quarter” — was home to hundreds of leather workshops producing everything from imperial saddlery to fine bookbinding. The leather guilds maintained strict apprenticeship traditions; a master leatherworker had typically completed fifteen years of structured training before being allowed to take work in his own name.
Several techniques that survived from this period continue in the modern luxury Turkish leather industry. The slow vegetable tanning of fine lambskin for clothing and bookbinding — distinct from the faster mineral tanning used for heavier goods — was perfected in Ottoman workshops and remains the gold standard for the highest-tier production today.
The modern industrial era
The relocation of Istanbul's tanneries to Tuzla, on the Asian side of the city, began in the 1970s as part of a broader effort to move industrial leather production outside the historic urban core. The Tuzla Leather Industrial Zone consolidated dozens of family-run tanneries into a single industrial district with shared water treatment infrastructure — a significant environmental upgrade from the older urban workshops.
A second major cluster developed in Çorlu, west of Istanbul in Tekirdağ province. Together, these two clusters now produce the majority of the world's premium lambskin destined for luxury leather goods. The buyers who walk these tannery floors — sourcing for European luxury houses, American leather brands, and small ateliers like Belgin Francis — are drawing from the same upstream supply.
What makes a Tuzla tannery different
From the outside, the larger Tuzla tanneries look like any other industrial facility. The interior, however, is something closer to a craft workshop scaled up. The premium-grade lambskin work is still done largely by hand: hides are inspected individually on arrival, sorted by grade by people who have done this work for thirty years, processed through tanning drums in batches small enough to monitor closely, and finished — softened, dyed, surface-treated — through a series of stations each tended by a specialist.
The institutional knowledge inside these workshops is unusual. Many of the senior tanners are second- or third-generation; their fathers and grandfathers worked the same trade in the older Istanbul workshops. The knowledge of which hides will accept which dyes, which finishes will hold up over decades, which combinations of inputs produce which outputs — this knowledge is largely undocumented and lives in the heads of the people doing the work. It is also the reason Turkish lambskin continues to set the standard that synthetic and lower-grade alternatives chase but do not reach.
The supply relationship
The atelier has worked with two Tuzla tanneries continuously since 2002. The relationship is closer to partnership than to vendor agreement; the tanneries know what the workshop in Turkey needs, the workshop knows what the New York studio is designing, and the studio knows what is possible at the current supply. Hide selections happen in batches, with the atelier's production manager present for grading several times a year.
This kind of relationship is increasingly rare in the global leather industry. Most large luxury houses now source through brokers and third-party suppliers, which compresses prices but loses the institutional connection. Smaller ateliers — particularly those who came up in the early 2000s, when direct relationships with Turkish tanneries were more common — tend to have preserved this kind of structure. It is one of the quiet operational advantages of buying from a smaller luxury house.
What this means for a buyer
When you buy a Belgin Francis piece, the leather has traveled a specific and traceable path: a tannery in Tuzla, a workshop in Turkey, an atelier in New York. That path has not changed in twenty-five years. The leather you buy today is, materially, very close to the leather the atelier sold in 2002 — same tanning tradition, same grade selection, same finishing standards.
This continuity is itself a luxury. Most premium brands you have ever bought have changed their supply chain three or four times since you first encountered them. The pieces age differently because the leather is, quietly, different leather. Maintaining the same supply across decades requires a deliberate slowness that most growth-oriented luxury houses cannot afford.
The future
The Turkish leather industry faces the same pressures as every other heritage manufacturing tradition — labor costs are rising, younger generations are less interested in entering the trade, and synthetic alternatives are improving year over year. The tanneries the atelier works with are responding the way the tradition has always responded: by investing in the higher end of the market, where craft still matters and the buyers can tell the difference.
The atelier intends to keep supporting that approach, season by season, piece by piece. The leather behind every Belgin Francis garment carries three thousand years of Anatolian leatherwork forward. It is not a small thing to be part of.
For more on what to look for when buying from this tradition, read our guide to evaluating Turkish lambskin, or browse the current collection.