Exotic leathers have always served as a statement of style, class, and luxury due to their scarcity. For example, cowhide leather is abundant and easy to find, but you’ll have to spend far more time and money to find clothes and items made from alligator skin. Similarly, bison leather is often considered highly valuable, but is bison leather considered exotic leather? Let’s consider what makes leather exotic.
What Makes Leather Exotic?
Depending on who you ask, the types of leather that are considered exotic can seem a bit subjective. Liberally, any leather that is not cowhide is considered exotic since it’s less common and sought after because they’re harder to come by. From a stricter viewpoint, however, exotic leather pertains to leather products that are difficult and less easy to come by. In that case, the question becomes how rare bison leather is.
How Rare are Bison?
When speaking about bison leather, people are typically referring to American bison leather, as most bison are found in North America, with a much smaller population existing in Europe. This has allowed North America—specifically the US and Canada—to become the largest providers of bison leather because there’s no other location on Earth that has as large a population or bison ranching industry. So, by the metric of how uncommon or exclusive bison leather is, one can consider bison leather to be an exotic leather.
Qualities of Bison Leather
So, bison leather may be exotic, but what makes it desirable? Most notably, bison leather is incredibly durable yet retains a soft and breathable texture thanks to a special vegetable tanning process used to create it. This makes bison leather products incredibly comfortable and practical, ensuring they remain a long-term investment that protects and comforts your feet far better than cowhide leather. When it comes to leather clothes, bags, and accessories, bison leather is one of the toughest and most pleasurable leather materials available to you.