My first buying trip to Italy in Bologna leather trade fair Lineapelle for Spring Summer 2015, what an amazing trip it was. It was a huge source of inspiration, seeing the trends coming though for next season, meeting our suppliers and being over whelmed by the vast amounts of leather and colours on all the stands and astounded at all the different processes the leather goes through to create all the different effects.

The colours that shone out for me where beautiful calming iced blues in all tones, strong coral, cobalt blue, soft putty tones of whites and stone, rich tans and jade greens a feast for the imagination.

A strong trend in printed leathers was Leguano, in deep reds and rich tans, we couldn’t resist these so watch this space, will be filtering into our collection soon..

An exciting trend we saw emerging is traditional weaves, ranging from basket to contemporary geometric patterns, one of these we are hoping to trial for next summer

It was great to meet our suppliers, one in particular Jacobs where we were fed with amazing manchego, Italian meats oh and a glass of red to finish it off!, this was towards the end of the day!

After a long day of walking for miles around the big halls it would be a shame not to check out the italian shoes and shopping, and then finally to end the day with a feast of amazing Italian food, it was so good we went back there a second night!

Above all a really good trip and looking forward to the next!

Leah Hopkinson