Close-up of tan vegetable-tanned leather grain

Est. 1962 — Ambur

Leather,made slowly.

Vegetable-tanned hides, hand-finished in Ambur for three generations.

See the Craft

Our Heritage

12.7904° N, 78.7166° E

Fig. 01 — Hide grain, Ambur

01 / 06 — The workshop

In 1962 Haji Mohammed Iqbal dug two tanning pits behind his house on Bazaar Street. Hides stayed in the bark liquor for forty days. Three generations on, the heritage line is still tanned that way in Ambur, and every piece is stitched by hand.

Iqbal Impex · 14 Station Road, Ambur

02 / 06 — Heritage

Four chapters, one family.

From two pits behind a house to an exporter in seven markets. The ownership history, told generation by generation.

Read the four chapters

Fig. 02 — 1962
Two pits behind Bazaar Street
Haji Mohammed Iqbal
Fig. 03 — 1986
Renamed Iqbal Impex
Abdul Rahman Iqbal
Fig. 04 — 2006
First stall in Milan
Abdul Rahman Iqbal & Farooq Ahmed
Fig. 05 — 2019
The 40-day tan returns
Imran Iqbal

03 / 06 — In figures

The workshop, in figures.

Two units · Ambur & Vaniyambadi

Since the first pits on Bazaar Street: 64years
In bark liquor, per pit-tanned batch: 40days
Artisans across Ambur and Vaniyambadi: 240
Finished pieces a month, at capacity: 15,000

04 / 06 — Process

From pit to batch number.

Fig. 06 — Tan leather, close up
01
Tanning
Heritage hides rest in bark liquor for forty days — the founder’s method, revived in 2019.
Fig. 07 — The cutting bench
02
Cutting
Machine cutting arrived with the Station Road workshop in 1991. Stitching stayed by hand.
Fig. 08 — Thread and rule
03
Stitching
Every finished piece is stitched by hand, as the first belts and wallets were in 1975.
Fig. 09 — Checking colour against the sample
04
Batch number
Since 2023 each heritage piece carries a batch number that traces it back to its hide.