Sisters’ profitable act

The Tannery Manila co-owners Macy (left) and Mariel Lazaro in their shop in Shangri-La Plaza mall. The sisters say their company prepares its own leather, all locally sourced. —PHOTOS BY LYN RILLON

Growing up near their family’s tannery in Bulacan, sisters Mariel and Macy Lazaro knew the smell of fresh rawhide and the texture of fine leather long before they were aware of anything else.

As scions of the Hermoso clan, pioneers in the Philippines’ tanning industry, the siblings remember a childhood filled with trips to their family’s factory, which supplied leather for the furniture-makers of Pampanga and the shoemakers of Marikina for decades.

“As kids, we’ve already seen how leather was made: The plating, the designs—they were all part of our childhood. Most young people today go to IT or corporate, but I enjoyed the factory setting, even the wet section,” says Mariel, a licensed chemist.

“Making leather is like cooking: You make adjustments in the chemicals, and you get different effects. The fact that you can do a lot of things and develop different types of materials —it’s fun, you can be innovative,” she says.

Macy, on the other hand, was their mother’s design assistant long before she took up Clothing Technology at the University of the Philippines.

The Chef bag is designed to hold different kinds of knives. The Tannery Manila is the only one that offers this type of bag.

“During trade fairs, my mom would ask me to paint on leather materials for the booth, so it also influenced me in choosing my course. There was also that little pressure that my mom would count on me to continue the business,” Macy says.

Now in their 30s, the two women are not only continuing the family business, they are working to revive and promote the Philippine leather industry.

Macy and Mariel established The Tannery Manila, a brand of luxury leather bags and accessories that has stores at the Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Mandaluyong City and at the UP Town Center in Quezon City.

At first, the sisters were only making and marketing products for their mother’s Chelsi Leathershop, a wholesale producer of leather articles for companies and retailers. Most of their clients were banks, hospitals, corporations and government offices.

It was Chelsi that produced the leather bags given as tokens to the delegates of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting hosted by the Philippines last year. Chelsi has also made leather bags that were branded for designers in Germany, Japan and Australia.

Finally, in 2013, after successful appearances at the Manila FAME, the country’s premiere design event, Macy and Mariel decided to launch a brand of their own.

“At the Manila FAME, we were showcasing finished leather in our own designs already, and people were saying, ‘Ang

Staffer Kim Villaluz inspects the cow leather in different colors on display in a corner of The Tannery Manila.

ganda (It’s so beautiful). Where’s your store?’” Macy says, recalling how they would have pop-up sales at their parents’ house in La Vista.

So many people came that eventually, their parents had to push them to get a place of their own to sell their products.

“Baliktad nga eh (It’s the other way around)—we produced because there was already a demand and we already had the production capability. That’s what pushed us into making a brand. Let’s put it all together already,” says Macy, now the marketing manager of the Tannery Manila.

Mariel notes that very few local brands offer quality leather bags, and many of them are synthetic.

“Our market now are people na nagsawa na rin sa mabilis masira or kaya imported leather bags na super expensive (Our customers include those who are tired of damage-prone or expensive products). Our price range is not that high, but we’re trying to give people the best quality,” says Mariel, who handles operations.

“I think what our clients like is that we’re trying to revive leather products in the Philippines. We proved that we can be competitive, that we can create products that are up-to-date and of good quality. What makes us different is our leather: The texture is different,” she says.

The Tannery Manila has released hundreds of designs since it was officially launched in 2013, but its first thematic collection was only launched in July at the opening of the Shangri-La store and the second collection in November, at the opening of the UP Town Center store.

“It’s different when you know the company is reliable, that there is a story behind it, that it has been around for a long time. It helps that they know they’re buying 100-percent Filipino-made products,” says Macy.

Having been around for a long time is an understatement for this family’s leather venture.

Macy and Mariel’s great grandfather, Alberto Hermoso, learned tanning from a Chinese trader in 1901. He passed on the craft to his three children: Isidro, Emilio and Consolacion, who all went into tanning, establishing the Hermosos as premier tanners.

Consolacion put up the Conching Hermoso Tannery (CHT) in the 1950s. It produced leather safety shoes for construction. Unfortunately, in the 1980s, when synthetic leather and cheap imports flooded the market, CHT had to close shop, and only the tannery was left.

In 2001, Conching’s daughter, Ma. Consolacion, who managed CHT for 30 years, established Chelsi Leather & Services Inc. with her sister. Another sister, Cora Jacobs, was among the known bag designers of that time.

Today, Macy and Mariel are carrying on the family legacy of producing not just top-quality leather but luxury leather goods as well.

Elias bag

“We wanted to have a brand that reflects what’s new in the market, something we can be proud of. We want clients to see that our products are as good as imported ones. Some clients come into the store and are surprised that bags are made here,” Macy says.

Some stylists have even pulled out products from The Tannery Manila for use by celebrities.

“People will always need bags,” Mariel says.

“The challenge right now is, since we’re growing, how we will delegate to other people the things that we do. Because we really started small,” she says, recalling how she and Macy used to write and take photos for their website.

“We were so passionate about working that we sleep in our factory,” Macy says of their early days.

The Tannery Manila has already joined trade shows in New York, Hong Kong and Korea. Mariel also trained in Spain and China.

Sometimes, when they want to develop a new process, they ask their Spanish and Italian technicians to come to Manila to teach their artisans.

“Many of our tanners are already old so we’re trying to incorporate younger people. Who knows, they might also enjoy the process, like I did. Only time will tell. What’s important is to ensure that Philippine leather will remain, that it will still be relevant to the new generation,” says Mariel.