The story
What it is
Sialkot is one of the world’s busiest leather towns. The same workshops that stitch footballs and boxing gloves cut motorcycle jackets, bombers, trench coats, satchels and wallets, much of it sold abroad under other people’s brand names.
Buying from a Sialkot maker directly usually means a full-grain or top-grain leather jacket for a fraction of a European high-street price, often made to your own measurements.
Where it comes from
Leatherwork in Sialkot grew out of saddlery and harness-making for the British Indian army in the nineteenth century. After 1947 the city’s tanneries and stitching units turned to sports goods, gloves and garments for export, and today leather is one of Pakistan’s largest manufactured exports.