Viera Kleinová
Furniture and product designer Tortia Hoare (along with Natalie Brady) pays attention primarily and especially to the processing of leather in regards to traditional methods. Through her research, she came to techniques used by medieval French craftsmen in their creation of leather armor. The hides, for this purpose, were heat processed- a manner of boiling it- by which various components of armor could be given shape.
In a similar manner was also prepared leather for book binding, traveling containers, and the like. For Tortia Hoare, this technique was in a way a revelation in the sense that it allowed the leather to be handled in the structural manner of plastic. More than that, as she states, it is also an environmentally friendly approach. The main motivation behind the adoption of technique was the desire to design furniture that is ergonomic, durable, and aesthetically pleasing. All of her designs are also processed by her into final products. She pays close attention to the mutual consistency between materials, so that leather and wood quite naturally “fit” together.