Practice-based research | Leather, materiality and emotional durability | October 2026

When does a mark become damage, and when does it become character? Leather presents a compelling paradox for sustainable fashion: the very changes that diminish the perceived value of one object can make another more desirable. This developing enquiry explores patina not simply as a surface effect, but as a question of interpretation, culture and continued attachment.

What does a mark mean?

Leather is rarely a perfectly uniform material. Its surface can carry wrinkles, scars, follicles, tonal differences and other irregularities that predate the garment itself. Cutting, stitching, pressing, embossing and finishing introduce further marks. Later, touch, movement, moisture, abrasion and care continue to alter its appearance. But these changes are not interpreted consistently. A mark that might be rejected on a pristine luxury accessory may be admired on a well-worn jacket. The question is not simply what happens to the material, but when and why that change becomes acceptable.

Matter out of place: the threshold of acceptable disorder

Mary Douglas’s account of dirt as ‘matter out of place’ offers a way to understand these judgements. A mark does not automatically announce itself as dirt, defect or patina. It is classified within expectations about material, context, ownership and use. My developing proposition is a culturally negotiated threshold of acceptable disorder: a shifting boundary between the changes we welcome and those that make a garment difficult to wear. A scratch might become evidence of character; a stain in the wrong position might make an otherwise sound garment feel unwearable. Neither judgement resides solely in the physical mark.

The surface before and after wearing

One focus of this research is the distinction between marks that already exist in a hide and marks acquired through manufacture and wear. An irregularity may be concealed during selection, positioned deliberately during cutting, highlighted by stitching or celebrated as evidence of the material’s origin. The same surface can be reclassified as it moves through a sequence: hide, tanning, cutting, making, finishing, ownership and use. In this sense, the material is not a blank canvas waiting for a wearer’s biography. It arrives with a history of its own, to which new histories are added.

Reading the sample

The leather sample pictured here is a useful prompt for these questions. It shows contrasting areas of colour and texture, visible stitching and a series of constructed details. Some marks appear irregular; others are clearly organised through making. Rather than automatically naming the variations defects or desirable patina, I want to ask what each feature communicates, who decides its value, and how that judgement might change when the sample becomes part of a garment. A photograph alone cannot establish the origin of every mark or demonstrate how the leather will age. Those are questions for material documentation and testing.

From leather taxonomy to material biography

A developing method is to build a visual taxonomy of surface characteristics: scars, grain variation, wrinkles, follicle patterns, tonal shifts, tool pressure, stitch marks, abrasion and darkening. Standardised photographs of selected areas could follow the same material through construction, finishing and subsequent wear. The purpose is not merely to catalogue defects. It is to record changes in classification: when a scar becomes a feature, when a scratch becomes patina, and when a mark crosses into perceived damage. Comparing material, mark, location and severity may help reveal why particular changes are accepted and others rejected.

Emotional durability is not the same as physical durability

My wardrobe research has shown that material condition and attachment do not always move together. A garment can be physically compromised yet remain emotionally important; another may remain functional but become socially uncomfortable to wear. This tension matters for sustainability. Engineering ever more resistant materials will not, by itself, ensure that people keep using them. Jonathan Chapman’s work on emotionally durable design helps frame the need for relationships that remain engaging beyond initial purchase. Leather offers a particularly rich material through which to investigate whether ageing can deepen attachment, and where the limits of that attachment lie.

Knowledge Exchange as a research method

At Nottingham Trent University, industry-facing Knowledge Exchange projects create opportunities to bring specialist material knowledge into conversation with fashion design, pattern cutting, garment construction and critical research. Working across academic and industry expertise allows material decisions to be examined rather than taken for granted: which surfaces are selected, rejected, concealed, repaired or emphasised, and why? Practice-based experimentation can then feed research-informed teaching, specialist workshops and future garment prototypes. These collaborations are valuable not only for producing objects, but for generating questions and evidence about the material choices embedded in fashion practice.

Designing garments that can change

The longer-term ambition is to develop and document a leather garment whose changing surface becomes part of its intended design life. Rather than promising an eternally pristine finish, this work asks how designers might make room for marks that record use without ignoring genuine damage, care requirements or material failure. A future study could follow the same areas of a garment over time and examine how wearers respond to the changes. The aim is not to assume that patina always encourages longevity, but to test the conditions under which it might.

Wearing in or wearing out?

A worn surface can signal neglect, authenticity, labour, intimacy or value, depending on the garment and the person reading it. This research therefore shifts the question from how do we prevent clothing from changing? to what kinds of change are garments permitted to survive? If emotional durability depends partly on how we interpret material transformation, designing for longevity may also mean designing for the meanings that develop through wear.

Lee Mattocks | Senior Lecturer in Fashion Design, Nottingham Trent University