At Hill Upholstery & Design, we use a wide variety of quality materials each day on all of our items to ensure the upholstery and re-upholstery work is the best quality it can be. We recently took a trip to Chouara Tannery, Morocco to see how leather is traditionally made!

The pictures below were taken in Chouara Tannery in Fez, which was built in the 11th Century and is the largest tannery in the city and a hugely popular tourist attraction.

The hides are still tanned using a mixture of cow’s urine, pigeon poo and lime and then they are dyed using natural colours – indigo for blue, poppies for red henna, for orange and saffron for the more expensive yellow.

We all agreed that the stench was incredible but worth it for the experience! It was great to see another side to the high quality materials that we use each and every day.

Take a look at some of our pictures below to see what happens during the tanning process!