Perfect workmanship
One of the important marks of quality for leather furniture is the way it is processed.
This begins with the selection and cutting of the leather. In order to ensure a constant high level of quality, de Sede has opted to fashion the entire leather covering wherever possible from one single piece of leather or where this is impractical from hides of the same colour, size and quality. As it is a natural product, leather never comes in pieces of exactly the same size and with an identical surface structure, so extremely rigorous selection of the material and precise planning of how to cut it are essential. Only about 10 to 15 percent of the hides that a tannery can supply are of a sufficiently high quality to be used in de Sede furniture. In addition, leather is only purchased by the batch in order to ensure that quality is as uniform as possible – this is especially important for furniture that is too large to be covered with the leather from a single hide. A batch contains some 50 to 100 hides which have all been dyed in the same process. Each of these is personally selected and categorised by the master craftsmen at de Sede.
Planning how the leather is to be cut serves to ensure that surface irregularities, such as scars, warts, dung sites, parasite damage or pitchfork injuries, are detected and avoided. Every item of furniture is divided up into quality zones with varying requirements. The strictest demands apply to areas that are clearly visible on the top and front of seat cushions, the top and front of back upholstery and the tops of armrests. For these, exclusive use is made of the heart and neck sections of the hide. Fat lines, individual scars and enlarged pores are only tolerated to a limited extent.
The high level of comfort afforded by de Sede furniture is achieved in the workshops thanks to sophisticated upholstery techniques. Various combinations of foam, cheesecloth and cotton padding are put together and processed for each individual model. Frequently, seat or back upholstery consists of as many as ten different foam materials providing varying degrees of flexibility and rigidness which are bonded together. These high-tech materials are nowadays as highly developed as sports textiles and far more durable than they were a few years ago. The extensive planning that is performed individually and comprehensively for every item of furniture is what makes each piece from de Sede a one-off product.
