The holidays are here, and with that comes busyness, hustle bustle, life contemplation and festive celebration. For those of you attending social events that want to wear something that you don’t wear everyday, but isn’t so fancy that you feel you should be at a black tie event, may I suggest draping yourself in a leather dress?
Leather is a durable and flexible material created by tanning animal rawhide and skin, often cattle hide. Leather can be produced at manufacturing scales ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry. Leather clothing items range from belts, shoes and purses to hats, jackets and dresses.
FORMS OF TANNING PROCESSES TO MAKE LEATHER:
- Chrome-Tanned Leather
- Vegetable-Tanned Leather
- Aldehyde-Tanned Leather
- Formaldehyde Tanning
- Brain Tanned
- Chamois Leather
- Rose-Tanned Leather
- Synthetic-Tanned Leather
- Alum-Tanned Leather
- Rawhide
Most leathers can be oiled to improve water resistance. However, don’t resist dressing in leather splendor in the rain. Leather jackets and coats rock any fashion boat!
Although black leather conjures up images of chic, tough and trendy, leather dresses look stunning and smashing in any color. As for forms of leather, most leather is sold in these popular forms:
- Full-Grain
- Top-Grain
- Corrected-Grain
- Split Leather
- Buckskin
- Brained Leather
- Fish Leather
- Vachetta Leather
- Slink
- Deerskin
- Goatskin
- Nubuck
- Russia Leather
Don’t be a fashion fit in or a fashion drain…dress in leather and go against the normal grain!
Nancy Mangano’s Festive Leather Fashion Tip: If you want to show up to a party or an event dressed in a way that stands out and sets you apart from the crowd, go with a fabulous leather dress. Very few, if any, other people will be covered in leather, and you’ll dress to impress in your excellent leather dress! Try it…put my words to the test! You’ll look your best!
Leather Fun Fact: In addition to clothing, there are two types of leather commonly used in specialty products, such as briefcases, wallets and luggage: belting leather (full-grain leather) and napa leather (chrome-tanned).
Most leather today is made from cattle skin, but exceptions exist. Lamb and deerskin are used for soft leather in more expensive apparel. Deer and elkskin are widely used in work gloves and indoor shoes. Pigskin, buffalo, goat, alligator, snake, kangaroo and ostrich hide also is used for leather.
Leather is shiny, shimmery and wet looking…sensual and seductive.
For those of you that want to wear leather, yet you don’t agree with the tanning of animal hide, synthetic leather looks identical to real leather, and holds up just as well. Enzymes like proteases, lipases and amylases have an important role in the soaking, dehairing, degreasing and bating operations of leather manufacturing.
Leather Not So Fun Fact: Real leather fibers break down with the passage of time. Acidic leathers are particularly vulnerable to red rot, which causes powdering of the surface and a change in the leather consistency. If you are strutting the party in real leather, make sure the leather is strong and supple. You don’t want your dress to come off by turning into a powder of enzymes and landing on the floor around you. Or, maybe you do, depending on your adventuresome side!
Lavish yourself in holiday leather!
Dress Fun Fact: The hemlines of dresses vary depending on the whims of fashion and the modesty or personal taste of the wearer. Before the Victorian period, the word ‘dress’ referred to a general overall mode of attire for either men or women, as reflected in phrases such as ‘evening dress’, ‘morning dress’, ‘traveling dress’, ‘full dress’, etc. At that time, the most often used English word for a woman’s skirted garment was ‘gown’. By the early 20th century, both ‘gown’ and ‘frock’ were synonymous with ‘dress’.
In most varieties of formal dress codes in Western culture, a dress is an appropriate style of wear for women. Dresses are popular office wear, as well as suitable clothing for proms and wedding. To take the elegant look of a dress up a notch or two? Slink into sensual leather…for a chic, sassy, classy, adorable you!
Jump on the fashion race. Dress in a mix of naughty and nice in leather and lace!
Exquisite fashion taste!
“Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the party tonight, darling?”
“It must be something over the top and splendid, to show off my massive diamond ring.”
“I feel you should drape yourself in tight fitting, slinky, sensual leather.”
“A dress in one solid color, simply cut, doable in both hot and cold weather.”
“How about your knee length black leather pencil dress? Sometimes less is more.”
“Bulls-eye. I’ll steal the spotlight when I hit the dance floor, that’s for sure!”
Slither yourself into slinky, sometimes kinky, always stylish leather!
Watch for Nancy’s next book in her award winning murder mystery series, Deadly Decisions – A Natalie North Novel, coming to bookstores and online bookstores in early 2017.
Nancy Mangano is an American fashion journalist and author of the Natalie North murder mystery book series, A Passion for Prying and Murder Can Be Messy. Visit Nancy on her author website http://www.nancymangano.com, Twitter @https://twitter.com/nancymangano, her fashion magazine Strutting in Style! at http://www.struttinginstyle.com, and her Facebook fan page Nancy Mangano https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nancy-Mangano/362187023895846
STRUTTING IN STYLE! NANCY MANGANO'S FASHION/STYLE/BEAUTY BONANZA 