TFL Fashion responsible

The TFL Group is a globally operating industry that produces specialty chemicals for the leather industry and related businesses. The multinational company offers its innovative products and solutions to tanneries, leather processing companies and coaters, continuously producing new technological solutions and trends. Business activities include the development, production, and marketing of specialty chemicals such as tanning agents, dyes, and finishing products, which enable customers, mainly tanneries, to create finished items with a high added value.
TFL has “business units” in every major tanning cluster around the world. To date it is actively present in 90 countries either with the support of exclusive agents and distributors or through local application centres, laboratories or customer service centres. Production sites in Brazil, France, India, China and Italy ensure Supply Chain proximity to customers. A comprehensive global network to provide the tanning industry with an optimal supply and service situation.
We met with Marika Peretti in the Montebello Vicentino office. In the company for almost 20 years she has held various positions until today’s role as fashion cooperations manager. “Together with the fashion team, I deal with the organization of fashion collections that are presented twice a year, and with the brand and designer relationships. The closeness to our customers,” he points out, “is very important to us, it inspires us to generate new ideas, we listen carefully to their needs and develop products that often exceed their expectations. Our technicians’ deep knowledge of technology applications enables us to develop the right solution for their needs. In order to provide optimal on-site service, TFL has application labs in most of its business units, located around the world. All centres are equipped with state-of-the-art technology, and Italy is the main hub for custom made training courses and presentations. For example, in our Montebello site, in which we are located, there is a real tannery in which we are able to carry out the complete cycle from wet to finishing and dedicated to research for furniture and cars, while in Castelfranco di Sotto is our global center dedicated to footwear and leather goods.”
How have you spent the pandemic period and what strategies have you adopted?
“We have intensified research and development work, while in terms of relationships with brands, distributors and customers, we have taken advantage of digital technologies to stay in touch. In TFL we give a lot of weight to the creative aspect to serve the fashion world. During the lockdowns we organized numerous connections with the Zoom platform: for example, presentations live from our Global Fashion Center in Tuscany in November for the summer and in May for the winter season and connected with eighteen countries from all continents reaching about 300 contacts among brands, customers, and distributors in a time lapse of 3 weeks. With our stylist from the Fashion Center in Castelfranco di Sotto, we made numerous live streams, both with slots dedicated to the individual brand or customer and to diverse groups: we used the support of simultaneous interpreters while our colleagues around the world had gathered in the most important TFL application centres, equipped with big screens with their most important customers and partners for the footwear and leather goods sector. Thanks to the work of a professional video maker, we presented our trends with equipment that allowed close-ups on leathers. Interested customers and technicians could also actually touch the leathers as, prior to the presentation, we had sent our physical book with the collection to our offices around the world. In addition, we created and uploaded a video of the presentation to YouTube, as well as sent participants their personalized recording, so that everyone could review it when needed.
What direction do you continue to follow?
In year 2022, we had three weeks of remote meetings in May and November periods, with at least 6 appointments a day, from Monday to Friday. Some of these presentations are cumulative, for India and Mexico we use maxislots where we group the main clients. The presentations are always live, with clients connected via Zoom having the opportunity to ask their questions. Our designer has a great knowledge of the areas and materials, and depending on the type of tanneries or the market in the specific area, in the presentation he focuses on the items he identifies as most significant. The client is then left with a recording of the meeting online, which they can review, show to the style department, and keep as a bibliographic reference.
In addition to the live presentations, of course. The collection has been in Spain, it will be in Portugal, and finally in India at the IILF Chennai fair.
It is a huge commitment, to prepare a collection of this kind.
Yes, in fact we are starting very early working at it. In November we presented summer 2024, and in May we will introduce fall-winter 23- 24. The Chennai fair in early February where we had a 135-square- meter booth, hosted our summer collection. Nevertheless, at the end of year 2022 we kicked off the 24/25 collection, we bought materials and we are already buying the skins. We start from the wet phase and do the finishing; we have the pantone colours, the moods already indicated by the designer. The type of items to be produced is decided also taking into consideration the feedback we receive from customers, and in March, when the first leathers are ready, we will start making all the accessories. These will be photographed and then our publisher, following the layout of the headquarters, will produce the booklets. At this point we will take fifteen days, before the presentations start in May, to send these catalogues to our main customers and some brands we have relationships with. There are also many brand-owned tanneries now that we have relationships with, for example, Gucci and Channel tanneries, who are committed to this distribution of presentations.
It is intense work, but nevertheless we have a network of local colleagues to support us. The designer and Roberto Borgia, who is in charge of the technical aspect of the collection, are supported by our own team of local technicians.
The wide variety of materials and products that we produce allows us to have a collection with a wide range of articles, which can be appreciated a little bit in every part of the world. Small leathers, for example, might be of little interest to an Italian customer of the Veneto region, but they are very interesting for the Spanish market, where this type of leather is a peculiarity. It is certainly essential to have a deep knowledge of the market, but it is also important not to limit the scope of the focus too much. The ideal is, based on this, to build up the company’s own targeted collection; this is a work that some local organizations of the Tfl Group develop starting from the hints of the global collection, transferring them on materials and typical issues of their market.
With this big research work, the time frame gets longer, so the team is always very early with the work, already today being at work on the Summer ‘24 collection. One year ahead of the fashion presentations and two years ahead of the collection.
A prestigious service for tanners that other large chemical companies do not provide.
In fact, it is a service we have always been known for, so much so that our slogan has been reworded into: “Great chemicals. Excellent advice.”
How important is sustainability in your collections?
The introduction in our collections of the latest technological innovations resulting from our in-house research is a relevant topic. The major investments are made within sustainability and circularity issues, in compliance with environmental standards. The RODA® PURE range of products, the result of our research related to bioindex. This is the biodegradability index of chemicals used in the production of leathers with a value that can finally be calculated and optimized specifically according to the needs of different areas of the world. To underline its importance, one of the main topics in the events and presentations of the year just passed was precisely the story of the Pure range, our products with the highest degree of biodegradability. As leather itself is an organic material, the more biodegradable the chemistry that will be used to process it, the more effective composting will be. The Pure tec line is the result of our research that is proceeding in parallel with normal production and aims to develop defining fixatives with a higher biomass index-all the products we already have in the range are also being studied. We have grouped under the name “Pure” all products that contain from 50 percent up to 100 percent renewable raw materials (in compliance with ISO standard DIN EN 16785-2, which regulates the content of bio-based products).
To stay true to a pragmatic and realistic approach, we have to establish what the sustainability index is for us -each has its own, which varies according to the environmental context of the tannery, the tanning districts, and the target customer- and then respect it.
Another imminent topic concerns the reduction of the bisphenol inside skins. Indeed, ECHA has published a regulatory plan which provides, once it enters into force, to drastically reduce the limits of BPA and other similarly dangerous bisphenols, including BPS and BPF, that can be found even in the tanning industry. TFL has already developed a range of products for the wet phase that comply with the lower limit of 500 ppm set for leather and is working on research to reach 2030, the year in which the restriction will become more stringent for the leather sector as well, with a range that may be free of these substances.

Some images of TFL stand at IILF, held in Chennai last February