“When you eliminate leather, you create demand for products like plastic and petroleum, which pollute the environment and are harmful to everyone.”
As Magazine Leather publishing, our interview about “LEATHER PRODUCTS AND LEATHER” with Mr. Volkan Yılmaz, owner of the PEGAI brand, which produces content that informs end users about “Tanner Leather Stein” leather products, known for its videos:
First of all, I would like to introduce myself. I don’t know if you know what Magazine Leather is, who you are, what you do. My grandfather ran his own tannery from the 1900s until the 1980s. My father also had a garment workshop and a leather clothing store since the 1980s. It continued until the airplane crisis between Turkey and Russia. My father had to close his stores.
Of course, you know the leather industry is a sector with ups and downs.
I am a journalist myself. For many years, I worked at Hürriyet newspaper, the national press of Turkey. After my journalism life, I worked at Sabancı Holding. Then, when my father had a store in the leather industry, I did research in the field of leather with the knowledge I gained in my childhood. I wondered why there is not so much promotion in Turkey, not at the level of English and not such a deep research and questioning.
Then we prepared a Magazine Leather website together with my teammates. Of course, this website does not focus only on one area. It is all about leather, we acted in a way to cover the whole sector. You know, it starts from the tannery, more precisely from animal husbandry. Until it reaches the end user. In this field, we have addressed chemical manufacturers and accessory manufacturers, that is to say, all of them. We started broadcasting in this way.
We interviewed the secretary general of the European tanners’ association. It is in our publications. Then we interviewed with the Sustainable Leather Foundation. In the meantime, we participate in international fairs, especially in Turkey. We participate in many international fairs such as Lineapelle, APLF. From footwear to accessory fairs.
I’ve told you about myself, but maybe you have some questions. Do not hesitate to tell me.
First of all, what does Volkan Yilmaz do, what does he produce, can you provide information about the account named “tanner.leather.stein”?
Of course, as you mentioned, my leather story is similar to yours. It starts not with my grandfather, but with my father. My father owned a tannery. I was born in 1986 in Biga, Çanakkale. My father has been running his own tannery there since 1978. Ever since I was a kid, I was very curious about this chemical processing in the tannery. It’s miraculous.
The leather is transformed from that bloody state into a very beautiful luxury fabric. The transformation process of the chemists was like magic, like alchemy. When I realized I was interested in it, my father took me in. My father also liked it when I went to the tannery as long as I was interested in it.
Since I was 8-10 years old, I learned to follow such masters. As you said, the leather sector is very volatile in Turkey. I was in many fields, I mean, we started with the laboratory, we made packages, we had a shop in Zeytinburnu. I was in charge of all of them, we also sewed some jackets, I also sold jackets, we also had a store in Laleli.
Then we closed them all, and in 2007 we moved our leather factory to Turkmenistan with a partner company. We produced cattle there for a year. We were doing small cattle before. It didn’t go very well because of the conditions in the country, we left everything and left after a year because there was a lot of bribery. Then I got a Green Card, I took it and came to the U.S. In the meantime, I can say my father retired. We ran a tannery in Armenia for about six months, with an Armenian businessman, and when that didn’t work out, it was time for my Green Card to expire, so I came here after a short time. They retired too. Then I did various jobs here for 7-8 years. I worked as a taxi driver, truck driver. Then I went back to school to get my MBA. My goal was to become a consultant in a corporate business.
I went to school for two years. I got a job, I started a consulting position in Chicago. Of course, for the first time I was working in a corporate company. For a year it was very comfortable, the money and everything was good. But it didn’t satisfy me. I mean, for a year it was eating me up inside. I was hesitant to go back and do something with my hands. And then I quit and everybody said, are you crazy? I mean, how can you quit after spending so much time and money? Anyway, I quit.
I didn’t know what to do, I thought I should go back to leatherworking. Then I started looking at how to make wallets on YouTube. I saw Etsy. In 2017, I opened a store on Etsy and that’s how the PEGAI brand started.
Yes, when my father and brother started to increase our sales in Turkey, they started to turn our building there into a small workshop. We started making everything there and then we started selling those products here.
Then PEGAI became my business within 3-4 months. Since then it has been growing well. About two years ago, I can say a personal clarity, I can say an inspiration. The name “Tanner Leather Stein” had been in my mind for 10 years, I had taken the domain name or something in case I thought that one day I would go back to the leather business, but I didn’t use it.
Two years ago, an idea came to me, I mean when I look at my whole life, I was born into leather, I tried to do something by loving leather. Then I started this business, it’s going well. All my friends were always asking me, I bought something, can you look at it? Is it beautiful? Is it leather? Is it fake? Did I pay a lot of money? When I added these questions together, I said, people love leather but they don’t have enough knowledge.
They don’t feel safe buying leather. I will share this kind of leather information using social media. So I will tell people that leather is like this, leather is beautiful, leather is not leather. That’s how it started. To do this, I thought it would be a good name for social media, a good stage name. That’s how we started.
In the meantime, I started looking at luxury brands. They were ridiculously expensive, but I didn’t know why they were expensive. I was also very curious. Then we bought a Louis Vuitton bag, cut it, opened it, looked at it, then collected the other side as leather. That’s how the first video started. We didn’t get a very good response from it, but I continued to try to reflect this information with different concepts for 5-6 months, 1 year. A year later, a video on TikTok got a good response. Then people came here saying do this, do that.
I see your videos, you’re tearing it up, and I’ve been reading some comments about what this guy is doing. By the way, we’re the same age, I was born in 1986. Our journey was almost the same. It’s really an up and down industry. I also shared a column on the website, when it comes to leather, I mean, I’m constantly visiting companies, doing interviews with them. Some companies, for example, tell me that tanneries are none of my business. The bag maker, for example, says it’s none of my business. So I wanted to explain this, why?
Because the industry is actually a whole. We need to think like this, until it comes to the end user, the end user buys the bag or the leather jacket, but they don’t know whether it is real leather or fake leather, or they don’t know what leather is.
Today is “World Leather Day”, you know, what can we do on this meaningful day to better explain this sector. It is very important, in fact, I emphasized this, the garment maker needs to explain the leather when giving it to the end user, he needs to explain it loudly, so that he needs to make sense of the tannery…
I absolutely agree because we are experiencing some things today because the leather industry is already lacking from this. This morning, a friend of mine from Spain sent me a video about how Apple removed leather from its accessories and made a 15-second nonsense YouTube video. I will make a video about it very soon. So a company like Apple has left its job and is dealing with such nonsense and spreading false news. But unfortunately the leather industry is also to blame.
Because we cannot tell the story of leather well, because I think it is necessary to tell people about a natural material. Among the natural materials that we cannot give up using today, for example, like wood, like metal, like water, like soil, so leather is a fabric that comes from nature for us, it has a long service life as long as you do the renewable processing well. And when you eliminate leather, you create demand for products such as plastic and petroleum that pollute the environment and are harmful to everyone. Big brands like Apple unfortunately create demand for these products.
But unfortunately, the leather industry is also at fault here because it has not been able to instill in people the naturalness and usability of leather. Unfortunately, because it is not united. I don’t see it as a competitor to any leather brand in the market. I see it as a collaborator. I see it as an industry that takes a garbage and recycles it and redesigns it for people to use. I think we are the oldest recycling upcycling industry and in this sense, instead of being united and explaining this, unfortunately sometimes we sometimes get into things like that brand is not good, this brand is bad and so on.
Everyone is doing something to the best of their ability, so the aim is not to criticize, but to tell people how good we are trying to do. We talk about how to make a cleaner, environmentally friendly product and tell people about it. I am trying to do this a little bit, rather than evaluating brands.
First of all, we are broadcasting on World Leather Day. What would you like to say on this meaningful day?
Leather, I think, is the only fabric that comes to us from nature. It is a material that comes as a fabric. I love all natural materials, dealing with them, making things. Like wood, like metal, like soil. I respect them, but because I grew up in the leather industry, I have a very different sympathy for leather.
Probably also from the publications we have done so far. And unfortunately nowadays, more than ever, people are trying to be seen as an alternative to leather. In a wrong way, especially by big brands, in the days when they are doing a big wrong PR work, I think it is high time for the leather industry to come together and make the industry much cleaner, much more environmentally friendly and sustainable by helping people to grow their interest in leather, to grow their love for leather, to help them understand and use it. I am trying to do my best in this regard. If we can cooperate with everyone in the industry and tell this story well, I expect everyone to contact me. You can send an e-mail anytime, we can make podcasts, we can shoot videos. We can tell people about this issue in a good way on Leather Day.
Absolutely right.
And on top of that we eat meat. Okay, there are people who don’t eat meat, but we eat meat. We somehow complete our meat consumption in every sense. But as human beings, we don’t question the leather of this meat, we will have dinner at home in the evening or, for example, we go to a meeting and we eat meat at the table. Where is the leather? We should definitely not question this. Because we don’t question this, we can’t hold on to each other, we can’t talk to each other, competition arises, different things happen. I actually say we should question this. Therefore, let this be a message on this meaningful day.
Mr. Volkan, I will move on to my second question, I think what you are doing now is for quality control. Does this work cover all product groups? I mean, not only bags, but also shoes? Does it include all product groups?
Of course it does. We have made the most bags so far. That’s where the most demand came from. I try to decide a little bit based on the comments of the audience, what to look at. But we also looked at shoes. We also looked at very different things. We looked at different things like leather armchairs, baseball gloves.
I have a plan to look at the places where the leather is touched. We couldn’t open those areas due to time constraints. I want to take a jacket soon and examine it. I want to tell people about it. One of the places I know the most is because of the garments we used to make. But the time has not come yet.
You know, rather than quality control, I want to give people a little bit of perception. So far, the leather sector, all the brands, everyone, you know, my leather is good, my brand is good, buy my product. They are already saying nice things, by giving money, by marketing. But no one has come to the customer and said that my product has this leather, it costs this much. We all know that the brand is expensive, we all know that it is because of the brand.
For example, when we go to Starbucks, we know that the coffee is expensive because of the name Starbucks, and when we think about it, we can figure out how much that coffee costs, we go and buy coffee and we can do the same at home. We have more or less knowledge about that process. But there is no such situation in leather. They buy the bag, they know it is expensive because of the brand, but they don’t realize how much they are paying. My aim is to take this, you paid a lot of money, this is the best leather, let’s open it, let’s see what the math behind it is, I’ll tell you. After all, it’s an industry reality behind the scenes that no one knows or sees.
In a sense, let’s look at the quality, you know, it’s very expensive. Is it really at that level, are you paying the money to deserve it? Or maybe we don’t know if it’s at that level. You know, they can establish the cost and brand perception of those two much more easily in their minds. And in their shopping, do I want to give this premium to this brand or not? I started making these videos for this purpose so that they can decide more easily.
You said you were talking about quality control, but if you can give a little more detail in the analysis here, at least people will perceive it more easily.
Yes. Of course, if we consider each product as a bag, 4-5 different factors create the quality of a bag. First is the design, second is the leather, third is the accessories, these metal parts. The fourth is craftsmanship, how it is put together. The fifth is the structure, you know, the engineering, the support mechanisms inside. This may not apply to every leather product, but it’s a very important factor in complex bags.
I mean, it is very important how that bag will stand, how it is designed inside and so on. We have no chance to see this without opening it. What kind of engineering has been done inside, what kind of support materials, what quality materials have been used. This may not apply to every leather product, but it is a very important factor in complex bags. How that bag will stand, how it is designed inside. We have no chance to see this without opening the bag. That’s why I look at this order when I cut the bags into pieces. What kind of engineering has been done inside, what kind of support materials have been used, the difference is usually very obvious there. Everyone fixes the outside of the bag, but some brands leave it in a filthy state. They use very cheap materials, why? Because nobody will see it, nobody will open this bag.
But on the other hand, some brands use the same quality materials on the inside as well as on the outside and finish them in the same cleanliness. When we see that, we can better perceive the quality perception of the brand. When we cut the leather, I apply acetone to the surface, remove the finish and try to see the quality of the leather underneath. Is the information given about the leather with tanning correct or not? If it says vegetable tanned leather, I burn it and look at it. I look at the workmanship and cleanliness inside and outside. Then I look at the quality of the accessories and metal parts, is it zamak? Is it steel? Is it bronze? Is it brass? I try to examine it in as much detail as possible and give people a preliminary information to compare it to that price.
The accessories are really important by the way because they are very important in terms of sustainability. It’s very right to focus on the accessories while looking at the quality of the leather we use here…
Sustainable Leather Foundation, when we interviewed Deborah Taylor, she gave an example like this, people buy digital phones, it is visually beautiful, but how sustainable are the parts inside it? I think the same applies to accessories.
Accessories are something that is ignored, something that nobody talks about, but there is a very deep world in its own field and there are accessories that are produced in a very risky way. There are damages to human health caused by the chemicals around the place where they are made. Therefore, we need to look at it, evaluate it and think about it. We are trying to raise awareness by looking at them a little bit.
I said what can be said by focusing on the end result when we analyze between product groups or products, but you have already said that.
Yes, as I said, these 5 criteria are important in bags, but of course, if we turn this into a jacket, it will be a little different. The quality of the model may be more important comfort, visuality, quality of fabrics. Shoes can also be different, I don’t know much about shoes. I probably know the least about shoes. I can’t say anything about the technical engineering of shoes, but I tried to say something about leather and material quality as much as I could. Since it is one of the most used products, the shoe category, videos are also watched a lot, of course, we will make a shoe video in the future.
May your success continue, especially shoes are separated by sixty percent in leather consumption.
By the way, do you have any questions? We can answer them. There are so many things I want to ask, but time is very limited.
I can’t think of anything else at the moment. But if you have other questions, you can send a message. Or you can send an e-mail. I can record it and send it. Or I can answer by writing. As I said, we are always open to anything to share information about leather, to talk about leather.
By the way, there is a Lineapelle fair in the US. My journalist teammate had attended it before. There is a different view of leather in America. On the one hand, it is viewed as deforestation, on the other hand, it is also viewed on the basis of climate change. There may be such views, of course, but manifestos are made through associations and various institutions. Europe is doing very well in this regard, but different countries are a bit behind in this regard, so we can say so.
Absolutely. There is much more active work in Europe. These issues start especially from sustainable agriculture. But you know, people can change with the information coming from social media. Of course, people’s sides can change. It depends on culture, it depends on what you eat, what you drink and it also depends on taste. I respect that people who don’t eat meat don’t want to use leather, but it’s a bit hypocritical for someone who eats meat to be against leather.
If you eat meat, you are producing this leather. The responsible action for you is to use that leather. Instead of creating a demand for plastic, it is a much more responsible decision for you to use the leather, which is a by-product of meat. It is a much more responsible decision for the world. So of course, by explaining this to people, there are people who know, there are people who don’t know.
That’s what we are trying to do. There is a huge audience in America that loves leather. From what I’ve seen so far, I think America is a leather-loving society, but not like Europe, you know their styles are different. It’s generally a society that likes more rustic and natural leathers. So fashion is generally a society that likes rustic and natural leathers.
If we talk about something other than a woman’s handbag, here they usually use these cowboy type leathers, which I like very much. When we go to Europe, Europe is much more sophisticated, more finished, standardized things. The space is much wider.
So I’m going to continue to do this a little bit in Europe next year, where there is much more content. As you said, Lineapelle here, you can even observe from there, it’s like a very small hotel hall, a hotel floor. But Lineapelle Milan, as for the content that we can’t finish visiting, as for the leather culture, I think Europe is the center of the world in terms of leather. So next year I will be in Spain for a while and we will start something there. I think we will have the chance to produce a lot more leather content there. I’m really looking forward to that.
As far as I know, Thomas interviewed you, Olivenleder, and I will go to the tannery in Germany. We are also publishing a magazine, Magazine Leather, apart from the website, we are also publishing a magazine. We had an interview with Thomas, he liked it very much.
He is a very good friend, that’s true, I was there two or three months ago, we met at their place in Germany. We also met there, Thomas is a very good friend, you say hello to him when you see him.
Mr. Volkan, thank you very much for the information you have given to Magazine Leather, I hope it will be a pleasant “Tanner Leather Stein” for you. I wish you more success in your publications.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you…