Exotic Leather Blog

Picking the Right Alligator Skin for Your Handbag Project (+Benefits)

Posted by Abram Mendal on Aug 22, 2023 10:04:19 AM

Alligator skin handbags are a hot commodity for high-fashion clients. Make your mark with your own alligator skin products.

As many designers know, the market for high-fashion handbags and other accessories is an intensely competitive market. With so many major fashion houses out there with such a strong grip on the market, it can be difficult for any single fashion designer to stand out.

However, difficult is not impossible.

With the right design, a lot of hard work, and some top-quality materials, you can make a gorgeous handbag that high-fashion aficionados will covet for their own collection. What is a top-quality material for handbags, you ask? One example of a top-of-the-line material for handbags would be American alligator skin.

Reasons to Use Alligator Leather for Handbags

Why would you want to work with alligator skin? It is a top-rate material for handbags, with a price point to match, which may make it prohibitively expensive for some. However, the exclusivity is part of the allure.

What are the benefits of working with alligator skin as opposed to plain cowhide? Read on and see.

Benefit #1: It’s Visually Distinctive

With an alligator hide, your final product has a built-in texture from the natural scale pattern of the alligator. This adds visual pop that helps to set the bag apart from ordinary cowhide and catches the attention of high-fashion accessory lovers.

Benefit #2: It’s a Very Exclusive Material

Alligator skin is prohibitively expensive, which makes it very exclusive. Ultra-wealthy clients wait for years for their orders with the big fashion houses to be filled, and/or pay exorbitant sums for used bags from private collections because so few of these bags are available and the demand for them is so high, which brings us to our next point…

Benefit #3: It’s Highly Sought After

Top-end fashion clients love buying things made from top-end materials, and alligator skin is a top-end material. When fashion clients buy alligator skin handbags, they’re coming in prepared to spend top dollar, making alligator skin handbags a very lucrative venture for any up-and-coming fashion designer.

Upper-crust clients know how rare and valuable a top-quality alligator skin handbag is, and they want one of their own. For many of these clients, a genuine alligator leather handbag is a badge of distinction, a mark that they have it all, while others simply insist on having the best, and will settle for nothing less.

Benefit #4: It’s a Mark of Quality

The best handbags are usually made from the best materials, and people know it. Alligator leather is widely regarded as one of the best materials on the market for high-fashion handbags, so any handbag made from alligator skin lends cache to your brand. 

Choosing the Right Alligator Skin for Your Handbag Project

alligator leather in a heart shapeOur handbag customers frequently ask us to help them pick the right alligator skin for their handbags. The first thing we need to know is the dimensions of the main panels (usually two same-sized panels: front and back). 

Our customer will usually provide those dimensions in inches, for example, 15” wide by 12” tall. We then convert that to centimeters (multiple the inches measurement by 2.55) which in this case would be approximately 39 cm wide by 31 cm tall.

The larger of these dimensions (39 cm in this case) will dictate the size of the alligator we need.  We take 39 cm and add 15% to be safe and we get 44 cm. This means we need one 44 cm or larger skin for the front panel and one for the back panel.

Typically, handbags customers don’t want any defects on those panels so the alligator skin should be grade 1 or 2. The alligator skin bellies are used for the two main panels and the alligator skin tail and head are used for the gussets, the bottom, the handles and other adornments.

How Skins Are Measured for Leather Clutches

On smaller bags like clutches, the front and back are sometimes made of one alligator skin panel with no seams to break it up. In that case, we need the dimensions of that entire panel – NOT the front and back separately. First, measure the width edge to edge as usual.

Then, use a tape measure to wrap from the top of the bag on one side (under the bag) to the top on the other side. These dimensions are usually approximately 10” wide by 10” long which converts to approximately 26 cm wide by 26 cm long. Add 15% and you get 30 cm by 30 cm. In this example, you need one 30 cm or larger skin. Again, the belly is used for the main panel, and the head and tail for everything else.

There are other ways to complete your panels, like using large, low-grade skins. At times, this can be more cost effective. But it only works if the design calls for many smaller panels seamed together as opposed to fewer, larger panels.

Note Of Caution: This is meant to be a general guide and may not apply to every project. We insist that you work with a manufacturer who has extensive experience with alligator skin and double-check with them to make sure you are getting the right alligator skin.

A 4-Point Checklist for Choosing the Ideal Alligator Skin for Handbags and Clutches

  1. What are the dimensions of your main panel(s)?
  2. Convert those dimensions to cm by multiplying the inches by 2.55.
  3. Add 15% to arrive at the minimum size alligator you can use for the main panel.
  4. How many panels do you have to cover in that size? That is how many alligator skins you will need in the minimum size discovered in step 3.  

Getting Your Alligator Leather

Overall, alligator leather is an excellent material for creating high-fashion handbags. Luxurious, supple, and very easy to work with, alligator leather is a top-quality material for talented fashion designers. However, it is one that can be hard to acquire because of the incredibly high level of demand for it and the limited number of skins available.

Alligator skin is in very short supply, so distributors don't typically stock much.

Tanneries, on the other hand, make skins “to order,” so you can get virtually any color of dye applied to your alligator skin. The major drawbacks here are that it can take a long time for an order to be processed, and the tannery will have to cover their setup costs with a surcharge.

Pan American Leathers offers the best of both worlds by acting as a tannery and as a distributor. We keep a ready stock of popular colors for short-notice orders, or we can custom tan your alligator hide order to give you the finish and coloration you want.

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Topics: alligator skin, handbags