Although he wasn’t born in a tanner’s family, Patrick Couteau came into contact with leather very early in his life when he visited a tannery as a young school boy.

Later, after finishing school with an International Trade BTS and other trade diplomas, national and foreign, and after several short professional experiences, he happened onto an add in a local paper. An SME was looking for someone to develop exportations. It was love at first sight, both for the product and the job.

Trained in-house, Patrick has become Trade Manager and 70% of the company’s turnover rely on exports. The job is extremely rich and fascinating. Products are beautiful and the variety of customers and trades is extremely wide: artists, designers, industrial, financial or marketing directors, as well as stylists, modelists, workers or managers in various fields. The tannery works with the small leather articles industry, as well as the shoe, clothes or house decoration industries. They also supply smaller niches such as organs makers, orthopedists or help to the restauration of old books... The job is interesting not only because if involves a lot of travels but also because of the collaboration with all “haute couture” maisons and because a raw material is turned into a magnificent product that everyone loves.

What you know of leather is that you know nothing

Although it is traditional, tanning is in constant evolution and tanners are not allowed to sit down and relax. Tanners work on a living material in an environment and with products that constantly evolve. Customers increasingly ask for a renewal of their leathers or to customize them. They push limits further and further... Solutions must be found and leather is re-learned every day, making the job highly philosophical: “what you know of leather is that you know nothing”. You must remain humble, and that makes it all beautiful.