202 HOMEBEAUTIFUL.COM.AU I AUGUST 2019
LAST WORDL
eather has been a central part of Australian life for millennia.
Centuries before colonisation, Indigenous people worked
the flesh of emus into magnificent cloaks with designs
etched using oyster shells, bone and stone tools. The First Fleet,
and those who came after, brought with them tanning skills: not so
much in their complexions, but in their leather goods. The result was
material that served you from mangrove to mountains. It was
known to weather immaculately, could be repurposed when needed
and was crafted by hand – hipster heaven. And you can be sure they
existed back then – just look at all those beards and beehives.
Point is, leather has been in our homes for a very long time. For
a while, we drank the Kool-Aid and decided that too much leather
was never enough. In an ’80s splurge, which saw more of the stuff
than a Mardi Gras parade, we summarily decided that our sofas
covered in fabric would simply no longer do. Urged on by shouty
commercials featuring business owners – themselves leathery –
we went hell for you-know-what. It was the sectional revolution.
Not only did these gargantuan three, four and more seaters
come in colours that only sometimes occurred in nature, they
also featured that most luxurious of inbuilt additions: namely,
the lever-operated footrest. What had we been doing all these
years with our feet not nudging the horizontal? Better still, the
leather sofa was equally at home in family spaces, the reception
areas of Botox pioneers and the most covetable bachelor pads.
Even Joey and Chandler of Friends had matching versions.
When it came to collectible pieces, leather was in a beautifully
cracked league of its own. Before the era when a replica Eames or
a Wegner was just a mouse click away, the scarce real deals were
invariably sheeted in aged cow flesh that bore the fissures and the
cracks of bottoms unknown and gatherings as sophisticated as
yours would undoubtedly be, once this was in your living room.
But this verdigris cost puh-lenty, as did new leather sofas,
which, despite manufacturing innovations that lowered their
prices, were also still quite the investment. For the many of us who
could not afford a leather statement, an accent was within reach- especially in the office. Few items set off a dark-stained desk
better than an inlay in British racing green. It spoke of a serious
space where important drafts were considered and cajoled and
deals ratified, and it bore the ghostly shapes of the thousands of
letters it cushioned. Add a bunch of hidebound books with
gilt-edged pages on a shelf behind – why of course I’ve read Anna
Karenina – and you could practically get away with calling what
was once a mere spare bedroom “the library”.
Leather also had its place in the bedroom. If you think that will
lead to some tawdry single entendre, you don’t know this columnist.
Rather than being on the occupants, the boudoir leather was instead
affixed to the bedhead with buttons. Totes fancy, like a five-star hotel
whose designer was going for “corporate chic”. Due to its intrinsic
nature, the leather would age along with the bed’s occupants and
reflect their various proclivities, by which we mean, of course,
reading their favourite home decor magazine.
Leather went with almost everything: shabby chic, south-
western desert, country cool, your olds’ castaways. Which
brings us back to the couches. An entire generation of young
Australians inherited the leather sofas that their upgrading
parents offloaded or guilted them into accepting. And here’s
the thing, they – both the couches and the parents – persisted
for so long that fashion eventually changed around them.
They endured, despite the fact that you stuck to them in
summer and they could cause ripples of gooseflesh during
accidental winter contact. So all hail the sofa – the leather sofa.
Just the place to ponder a substance ingrained in our nation’s
history. You may even want to put your feet up. Allow us to help.LEATHER
UNSUNG ICONS:
“FEW ITEMS SET OFF A
dark-stainedDESK
BETTER THAN AN INLAY IN BRITISH RACING GREEN,
ESPECIALLY IN THE OFFICE”COMEDIAN DAVID SMIEDT TAKES AN IRREVERENT, BUT APPRECIATIVE,
LOOK AT THE CLASSIC THINGS THAT DEFINE YOU-BEAUT AUSSIE LIFE
Illustration MATT COSGROVE