Next time when you are at Champs de Elysees in Paris, Oxford Street in London, Fifth Avenue in New York or Orchard Road in Singapore and are tempted by a handbag, wallet or a pair of leather gloves, chances are that you will get the same product minus the label, at half the price in Kolkata.
For many wallets, handbags and gloves retailed in high-street stores of fashion labels e.g., Couch, Debhams, House of Frazers, Marks & Spencer, Gucci and Wall-Mart are manufactured in factories in Topsia-Tangra-Tiljala belt in Kolkata. Even wallets sold at souvenir shops of English football clubs e.g., Aston Villa, Sunderland, Brighton, West Bromwich and Derby County.
Has 531 tanneries, of which Tangra, or Chinatown, has 230, most of the
standing structures have been built, over many years, by the industrious Hakka Chinese, upon marshy and reclaimed low-lying land. The Hakka Chinese of Kolkata have gradually turned this part of the Kolkata into an important destination for sourcing finished and semi-finished leather and leather products.
The Tangra Chinese are caught in their own time warp, manufacturing finished leather from raw skin and hide, mostly at home. They do their part of the job-of socking, liming, pickling, chroming and tanning-under the unwavering attention of a patriarch. The factory is usually located on the ground floor of the house, the labour under close watch of family members peering from the living quarters and the high compound wall guarding the operation from outsiders.
The Hakkas were driven from their original home in present day Xianjiang province around 250 A.D. by drought and the invasions of Locusts. Over the next 1,500 years they moved southward to Kwantung (Canton), and after the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) the reigning Manchus drove them across the seas.
Has 531 tanneries, of which Tangra, or Chinatown, has 230, most of the
The Tangra Chinese are caught in their own time warp, manufacturing finished leather from raw skin and hide, mostly at home. They do their part of the job-of socking, liming, pickling, chroming and tanning-under the unwavering attention of a patriarch. The factory is usually located on the ground floor of the house, the labour under close watch of family members peering from the living quarters and the high compound wall guarding the operation from outsiders.
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