TLDR: Italian Leather is actually leather outsourced from Africa and white labeled as Italian to be sold as luxurious goods. A lawsuit made them change their labeling to ‘Genuine’ leather, unless they actually make it in Italy.

As a side note, White label means when you have someone else make shit, and you slap your logo and branding on it and sell it as if you made it.

Everyone always boast in their keeping up with the Jones’ life about how they have fine grade Italian Leather.

But you see, the secret is Corporate America isn’t the only one outsourcing the means of production and supply to other countries.

Ever wondered why it stopped being called ‘Italian’ leather and started being labeled as ‘genuine’ leather? If it doesn’t say ‘Made in Italy’ then guess what, it’s not made in Italy.

Yea, Turns out, Italian companies would get Nigerian leather, and say it’s made in Italy. Then sell it as ‘Italian’ leather. It was a very common practice until Supreme court of Cassation in Italy ruled against that in 2011.

That’s the AI gemini TLDR.

Here is some reading about the Italian Supreme Court ruling (From Grok);

It get’s funnier though

Some people are anecdotally saying that Nigerian Leather is sold to another part of Africa, and then it gets sent back to Nigeria being branded as non-Nigerian. It’s like laundering the manufacturing owner so you don’t know who made it, and have someone else claim or certify it being legit;

For Context, Aba is in Nigeria, and Cotonou is in West Africa. So it’s literally passing back and forth between countries.

Arguably this happens in The West as well.

Idk, do consoomers really tout foreign over domestic? Sounds a little treasonous economically.

With the internet

The Nigerians and other leather makers started to wise up, and now they want to start their own fashion brand. Cut the middle man out sorta thing. Very common practice in scaling and businesses. Maybe a good idea, maybe not, time will tell.

I mean, they already have the product and knowhow, and they have the same quality of leather. They just got to have the same quality of manufacturing (dyeing, cutting, and sewing, etc.) and they’re luxuries competition.

Allbeit, the branding of it has to appeal to people too. Whatever, people are wanting Walmart Wirkin Birkins anyway.

Here’s another article about Nigerian Leather

As a side note

The US isn’t just censoring China, and Tiktok, they are also censoring Africa and anything that relates to digging up the truth about Africa. This includes it’s wealth and exploitation by the world.

Any hoot, the US is attacking media like ‘African Stream’ which reports on these issues and more;

You have to realize, the world governments are bullying Africa to be a production hub. Just follow the economic exports and imports, or Michael Hudson the Economist on these issues. It’s pretty clear that the West is the bad guys. (Same thing with Caocao slave farms, Cobalt mines, blood diamonds, etc. etc.) What’s not clear is if Africa is allowing this to exploit their own people, or if the West just likes assassinating anyone who tries to fight back (which is often the case).

In recent news, the US has trade disputes with Mexico to allow GMO corn. You know, the kind of corn that only grows once and doesn’t produce germinated seeds. Yea, so our Big Corn is expanding into other countries.

And note that Africa is sort of a sharecropper, and exporting US GMO corn from Africa. Because Trade deficits and reasons. Oh, also Africa owes US in US dollars, so inflation and other things are fucking them over. So instead of our aid money to help feed Africa going into crops they can grow and expand domestically, the money typically goes into corn that they have to sell and buy more, forever chained to the teat of GMO corn.

Anyways, global trade is all kinds of fucked.

Side note

Ask Grok about Monsanto Corn in Africa, and all the sudden it wants my location.

The short answer is yes. And you should really look at trade deficits if you want to see how fucked all of this global exploitation of Africa is.

In Closing

Uh, Idk man, I don’t like Global Imperialism, but I like Humanity Ubuntu style multicultural globalism. Apparently the governments don’t want that.

Exploitation is how exploiters gonna exploit.

Is relabeling something unethical? Idk, depends on how much is relabeled and if it’s deemed ‘intellectual theft’.

Like the leather might be from Nigeria, but the dyeing and sewing could be done in Italy. Is that Italian Leather, or better to say Italian made? (see this discussion on US Supreme Court rulings on product origin)

When you paint on a canvas, do you say your canvas was made by you or your art was made by you? What if you print it from a printshop in China? Is it Made in China? Is it Made by You?

When you get asked where you’re from? What do you say? The place you were born, your genetics, your lineage?

It’s all about this identity of shit. It’s identity politics, but not the Rainbow lowbrow kind.

Blurred lines, all of it is weird- Whatever gets people to buy, is the marketing gimmick.

*Not Valid Financial, Legal, Life, or Any Advice