Let’s continue where we left off last week… After visiting ‘my new colleague’ is was time to find this real Greek Leather Supplier! We stayed in a little village called Panormon but this leather supplier was located in a larger city, Chania. By now, you will know I love to shop (or sometimes… window shop) and I like to keep track of the latest trends. So when you have to opportunity to check out the Greek fashion you just have go, isn’t it…? 🙂
Chania here we come!
With a 2 hour drive along the coastline of Crete, all you want is a dip into that incredible blue ocean, a cocktail under the thatched umbrella and to tan a little. But we were on a mission… so no beach, no blue ocean but leather. Well, there are a lot of leather shops in Chania. Especially when you walk towards the port of the city. The image above is one of the buzziest leather streets. Tourist swarm around the shops and salesmen are selling their products for the best price they can get. A little negotiation is possible, but in the end, they are hard working leather craftsmen and leather isn’t that cheap. So for everyone who doesn’t know the “real” price, just ask what it cost to make the bag. They are often really honest about it.
A shop hidden in plain sight
In between all those shops with leather bags, belts and accessories, stocked up to the ceiling, is a shop you will pass if you don’t pay attention. But in this case, our destination was reached. It’s funny, apparently, they weren’t used to have “tourists” in their shop but hesitantly they asked if they could help me. I tried to describe the kind of leather I wanted, for my camera bag. You had to walk carefully through the shop since there was leather orders laying all over the floor and new hides coming in. But once I had reached the counter various kinds of leather were shown.
Something unique, please!
While on holiday, you often don’t have much room in your luggage left for extra kilos of leather. So, if I had to choose one kind of leather. What would it be…? It’s quite a hard choice but eventually, I choose a brown shaved oiled piece of leather. “All it needs every once in a while is a little bit of baby oil” they said. Price-wise didn’t it differ from the Netherlands but I had never seen such a type of leather at my local leather shop. So let’s wrap it up and let’s go!
Don’t forget to visit the rest of Chania
We went to Chania for the leather shop, but if you have never been there before, DON’T SHOP IN THE MORNING, because you will have to carry the leather with you all day. Eventually, we choose to walk the ‘whole road’ back to our rental car but now we could enjoy our day in Chania. If you are looking for a little piece of heaven in Chania stop for lunch in the garden restaurant Adespoto or stay for until dinner with live music (in Sifaka street)! After a few more days it was time for us to return to home and start on all the lovely leather projects with this beautiful piece of leather.
Back to today
A year later I have finished multiple projects with this leather:
- The leather desk pad
- The watch box
- The diamond paper press
- The laptop case
- The straps of the IKEA hack summer bag
- And I have started on the camera bag (but haven’t shown you yet ;))
This year, we returned to Crete and of course, we had to visit the real Greek leather supplier in Chania! As I said, you only have to take one step in the shop to see the latest leather trend for tourist. This year … it is rose gold shiny leather… Well, not really my type of leather. But we had to do the whole process again…”Can I help you…” After a little while, he remembered us and was less hesitant to help us. Luckily they still had some hides like my previous and of course, this was the one to take home!! What will be made out of this beautiful piece of leather this year…?
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