Buying Cheap: How It Costs You More When You Could Have High Quality And Durability

There is a famous quote by Mahatma Ghandi

“Its a tragedy of the first magnitude that millions of people have ceased to use their hands as hands. Nature has bestowed upon us this great gift which is our hands. If the craze for machinery methods continues, it is highly likely that a time will come when we shall be so incapacitated and weak that we shall begin to curse ourselves for having forgotten the use of the living machines given to us by God.”

– Mahatma Ghandi

Continue reading “Buying Cheap: How It Costs You More When You Could Have High Quality And Durability”

Buy It For Life – Part Six: Buy For Life Every Time?

Should we demand high quality in every product we purchase or is it OK to be content with low quality from time to time and in some circumstances?

The most appropriate answer would be similar to the answer that my psychology professors in college would often give: it depends. If obtaining quality is within reach, even with some sacrifice or patience, it is worth it to forgo a cheap product in lieu of saving up to purchase a higher quality one. The return on investment is simply greater than the higher cost. The amount of enjoyment that you get from it, the durability that you will experience, the cachet that it brings to you, how well it works, are all benefits of that quality.

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In conversations with craftsman of high quality goods, we agree that America is going through a small renaissance; a return to its roots. America is tired of junk. We are okay having less, if that less is something of quality. It is better to have a single, high quality belt that you can wear everyday, that improves with age, than five belts that unravel after a year or two. It is simply better to have fewer, high quality goods, than closets full of junk.

As a society, we need to go back to our roots of craftsman designing and building products that endure, and run away from high quantity, high turnover goods. The time has come for us to fully embrace quality, and the hallmarks that represent it.

read more in the Buy It for Life series

Buy It For Life – Part One: Durability

Buy It For Life – Part Two: Aesthetics

Buy It For Life – Part Three: Design

Buy It For Life – Part Four: Cost

Buy It For Life – Part Five: Cachet

Buy It For Life – Part Six: Buy For Life Every Time?

Buy It For Life – Part Seven: 6 Rational Reason to Buy An Expensive Leather Bag Instead Of An Inexpensive Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Eight: What You Should Find In A Long Lasting Leather Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Five: Cachet

Cachet, “the state of being respected or admired” is another hallmark of quality. Cachet is intangible, yet produces a physiological effect, that impacts how we view and feel about an object.

Certain goods are produced in a way that make people who have them look or feel better. When I purchased my first high quality leather bag and brought it with me to work, my head was held a little higher, and my chest was puffed out a little more. I felt good having this bag with me. I felt a bit more confident. I felt like it said something about who I was, and the values that I had. This is a very distinct example of something that has quality, it makes you look or feel better, because you know that it is something that was made with high attention to detail, with excellent materials, by skilled craftsman.

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The feeling of being proud of certain goods does not always mean that what you have is of high quality though. When I got a Jansport backpack for my freshman year of high school, for example, I similarly thought that I was a little cooler, because it was what a lot of other kids had. This did not mean that it was a high quality product. It was my perception. But like cost, where a high quality product will never be inexpensive, a certain amount of cachet will always be associated with a high quality good. If something has cachet, you will know it. You’ll be stopped and complimented. You’ll be noticed. You might just have a little more swagger in your gait as a result. Chances are, you’ll have something of high quality.

read more in the Buy It for Life series

Buy It For Life – Part One: Durability

Buy It For Life – Part Two: Aesthetics

Buy It For Life – Part Three: Design

Buy It For Life – Part Four: Cost

Buy It For Life – Part Five: Cachet

Buy It For Life – Part Six: Buy For Life Every Time?

Buy It For Life – Part Seven: 6 Rational Reason to Buy An Expensive Leather Bag Instead Of An Inexpensive Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Eight: What You Should Find In A Long Lasting Leather Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Four: Cost

More expensive products are not always the best products, but how expensive an item is, is usually an indicator of quality. Cost is another hallmark of quality. Just because something costs more though, does not mean that that something is better, or does it?

There certainly is a relationship between cost and quality. It is impossible to make something very well, if the materials and the skill of the craftsman are poor. Highly skilled craftsman demand higher wages. The best materials naturally demand higher costs. If you buy a leather wallet for $20, you can pretty much guarantee that it’s not going to last very long and may not even function like it should. I’ve bought my fair share of $20 leather wallets, which inevitably I throw out over time, because they eventually started falling apart. Comparatively, I purchased a well constructed wallet 2 years ago, and the wallet has only seemed to improve with time. The wallet cost me just under $60. At approximately 3 times the cost of more mainstream wallets, this new wallet is comparatively expensive. Considering that this wallet will most likely last my entire life, it is actually comparatively inexpensive.

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Does this cost/quality scale continue indefinitely though in a linear line? Is a $600 wallet, ten times better than a $60 wallet. There certainly are diminishing returns after a certain price point. Determining what that price point is, is difficult to do, and of course depends on the product category. With leather goods, there are four price points as they relate to quality: 1. Cheap 2. Decent 3. Great 4. Exceptional.

1. You can buy an inexpensive leather product and it will be cheap. It won’t last long, won’t look good after a little use, and will eventually fall apart.

2. A decent product will last longer, function better, but will be lacking in certain areas. It’s like buying a $20 belt at a department store. This belt will look good for a while and will do a good job, but you’re not going to have this belt longer than a couple years.

3. Great quality is the $100 belt. This belt can last last a lifetime if properly cared for. It is built with the best leather by skilled craftsman. It can improve with age, and you didn’t have to go into debt to acquire it.

4. The exceptional price point also provides for a great quality product, but at a price point so high that few can afford it. This is the $700 Hermes belt. Is the $700 belt that much better than the $100 belt? In some cases, perhaps, but in many cases, no. The vast majority of these products will also last a lifetime, they are made of the best materials and by the best craftsman. They are unique mostly because they cost so much. A deliberate attempt at pricing out the majority, in order to create exclusivity.

read more in the Buy It for Life series

Buy It For Life – Part One: Durability

Buy It For Life – Part Two: Aesthetics

Buy It For Life – Part Three: Design

Buy It For Life – Part Four: Cost

Buy It For Life – Part Five: Cachet

Buy It For Life – Part Six: Buy For Life Every Time?

Buy It For Life – Part Seven: 6 Rational Reason to Buy An Expensive Leather Bag Instead Of An Inexpensive Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Eight: What You Should Find In A Long Lasting Leather Bag

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Buy It For Life – Part Three: Design

Form certainly does follow function. Like a beautifully constructed building, a properly constructed leather bag works as it is intended to work, and the shape it takes enables that function.

A backpack, for example, is intended to carry books and gear, and to carry them comfortably. A quality backpack will therefore be large enough to carry these goods comfortably, to carry a sufficient quantity of gear, and to do so with sufficient comfort. Beyond that though, design boils down to much finer details as well. A quality leather backpack will have fine, even stitching, and the stitching will serve to reinforce and hold together the leather in the best possible way. The thread will be an appropriate thickness, to ensure strong seams and long life. The rivets will be secured in the most appropriate parts of the bag, to virtually eliminate the possibility of the bag coming apart. The leather used in the bag will be the most sensible for it’s purpose.

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The design of a quality product will be planned and thought out from the smallest detail, to its most general use. This attention to detail inevitably leads to a more time consuming process in creating the product, which inevitably leads to a more expensive product.

read more in the Buy It for Life series

Buy It For Life – Part One: Durability

Buy It For Life – Part Two: Aesthetics

Buy It For Life – Part Three: Design

Buy It For Life – Part Four: Cost

Buy It For Life – Part Five: Cachet

Buy It For Life – Part Six: Buy For Life Every Time?

Buy It For Life – Part Seven: 6 Rational Reason to Buy An Expensive Leather Bag Instead Of An Inexpensive Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Eight: What You Should Find In A Long Lasting Leather Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Two: Aesthetics

Beauty is another hallmark of quality. Consider when you are shopping for a great pair of leather shoes. What is the first thing you notice in a quality pair of shoes – they look beautiful.

Italian shoes especially have a noticeable sveltness due to the blake sole method. You do not immediately notice the durability, because that takes time to determine, but you do notice how beautiful the items looks. A leather bag that is a piece of junk may look fantastic upon first glance, but upon further inspection (or ownership) it’s true cheapness is discovered.

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Can a high quality pair of leather shoes or finely made leather gloves look terrible? I do not think so. Inherent in a quality product is pleasing aesthetics. Have you ever purchased a high quality leather bag and realized that you have a hard time peeling your eyes from it? When I purchased one of my first high quality leather products, an iPad sleeve, I had a hard time not staring at it. It was beautiful. The color of the leather. The perfect stitching. The clean cuts. Perhaps I was a little obsessed, but the point is that an inherent quality of the sleeve was it’s aesthetics. A crappy product may look good, but a quality product never looks poor. Similarly, a quality product not only looks like it’s quality, but functions like it too.

read more in the Buy It for Life series

Buy It For Life – Part One: Durability

Buy It For Life – Part Two: Aesthetics

Buy It For Life – Part Three: Design

Buy It For Life – Part Four: Cost

Buy It For Life – Part Five: Cachet

Buy It For Life – Part Six: Buy For Life Every Time?

Buy It For Life – Part Seven: 6 Rational Reason to Buy An Expensive Leather Bag Instead Of An Inexpensive Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Eight: What You Should Find In A Long Lasting Leather Bag

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Buy It For Life – Part One: Durability

Most of us would define quality similarly to the Webster Dictionary: “How good or bad something is”. At BestLeather.org, we define quality as how well crafted a leather product is.

One way of looking at quality is as a means of comparison from one thing to another. You may look at a product and think that it is a quality product, because it is better than another product you’re aware of. Most would agree that a Subway or Blimpie’s sandwich is better quality than your homemade PB & J. Does that mean that the Subway sandwich is the highest quality sandwich, or just better quality than. If you compared a Croque Monsieur sandwich at Les Deux Magots in France to your local Subway Meatball Marinara, you could then possibly argue that the Subway sandwich is not really a quality sandwich at all, at least compared to the French sarnie.

Considering that we care about leather here at BestLeather.org, lets look at a leather example. Would you consider a leather wallet made by Louis Vuitton in Italy better quality than one made by Tommy Hilfiger in India. The Vuitton costs over $600 and the Hilfiger under $30. Is a wallet by Saddleback Leather, which costs $59 of a higher quality than the Vuitton wallet? How would one determine which is the better quality and which is worth the money? What are the criteria, tangible and intangible, that determines whether something is high quality or not? Is there a price point, at which higher quality produces diminishing returns?

These questions can best be answered in looking at five hallmarks of quality. It is important to first note that quality can be applied to just about every facet of our lives: relationships, food, writing, time, professions, goods, etc. For the purposes of this article, let’s stick to quality as it relates to goods, and more particularly, leather. This list is not exhaustive, but encompasses a broad spectrum of quality.

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durability

The hallmark most of us would initially consider in relation to quality goods would be durability – how well a product wears over time. This is the case for good reason; most of us accept that when a product lasts a long time it is of good quality. In most cases, durability is a great indicator of a quality product.

For a good to last a long time, there are certain processes and materials used, to ensure that the product endures over time. A backpack that is made from full grain leather, that has been expertly tanned, dyed all of the way through the grain, is doubtless going to last longer than one that has been stripped down to the weaker leather fibers, tanned in an expedient fashion, and simply painted. The fact that a backpack can last you many years, even many decades, illustrates the pinnacle of the definition of construction quality. One that falls apart after a year or two of periodic, or even heavy use, illustrates a product that was not quality made. When it comes to leather goods, you have to look at three key factors that determine durability.

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1. Type of leather used.

Full grain leather is simply the best leather that can be used in the making of most leather goods. Top grain leather, genuine leather, or bonded leather, are all lesser versions of their stronger brother. They lack the grain strength that comes from using the more densely packed fibers of the outer layer of the animal skin, and therefore lose some of the durability. Top grain leather can be an exception in some cases, because it is also the outer layer of the animal skin, but is still shaved down to meet certain applications. When looking for a high quality leather product, look for full grain to ensure you are getting the most durable good possible.

2. Tanning process.

How a hide is tanned, makes all of the difference in the end quality and durability of the leather. You can start with a quality, full grain hide, and if poorly tanned, that leather might as well be vinyl.

There are two major methods of tanning: chrome based tanning and vegetable tanning. There are many other, less common methods of tanning (i.e. brain tanned, alum tanned, aldehyde tanned, etc.), but considering that veg and chrome tanning are the most common, let us focus on those.

Vegetable tanning uses naturally occurring extracts, such as tree bark, to slowly tan a hide. The process takes weeks, and when done properly results in an extremely durable hide used in a variety of leather goods.

Chrome based tanning occurs by tumbling hides with metal chromium. This method was developed in the mid 19th century and resulted in a much quicker process of tanning a hide.

Vegetable tanned leathers are considered by some to be more durable than chrome tanned leathers. The majority of junk leather is chrome tanned, which perhaps explains the negative association, but not all chrome tanning is produces less durable leather. The Horween Company in Chicago produces a fine chrome tanned leather that is used in quality leather goods. These leathers can last as long as vegetable tanned leathers, because of the strict adherence to a quality process.

The important aspect in deciding which tanning process is most appropriate will depend on the end use of the leather, and the quality of the process itself.

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3. Construction

Without proper construction, the best leather, tanned with the best process, will eventually break or fall apart. Outside of proper design, the most crucial aspect of construction is the choice of thread used. There are a few varieties of thread used in quality leather goods. Polyester, nylon, and linen are the most common (artificial sinew, dacron, leather cord are other, less common choices) . With these, there are an abundance of options as well – waxed, unwaxed, bonded, unbonded, you get the point. The importance is to choose the thread that is most appropriate for the leather, the product, and the stitching method.

Another component in high quality leather bags is the use of rivets. The use of rivets is a classic example of over engineering. Rivets strengthen a bag beyond what only stitching can do. A properly placed rivet prevents seams from separating and further strengthens the stitching. Well placed rivets and evenly spaced stitching can also be quite beautiful.

read more in the Buy It for Life series

Buy It For Life – Part One: Durability

Buy It For Life – Part Two: Aesthetics

Buy It For Life – Part Three: Design

Buy It For Life – Part Four: Cost

Buy It For Life – Part Five: Cachet

Buy It For Life – Part Six: Buy For Life Every Time?

Buy It For Life – Part Seven: 6 Rational Reason to Buy An Expensive Leather Bag Instead Of An Inexpensive Bag

Buy It For Life – Part Eight: What You Should Find In A Long Lasting Leather Bag

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