We make one thing, and we make it out of hide
TrachtHouse cuts Bavarian Trachten, jackets, bags and small leather goods from genuine deerskin, goat suede and cowhide. No polyester costumes, no printed panels pretending to be embroidery. If it carries our name, it started as a hide.
A United States company. Shipping to more than forty countries.
It started with a complaint
A customer bought a pair of lederhosen online for a family wedding in Bavaria. What arrived was printed polyester with a plastic buckle, and it came apart before the second day of the celebration. The people who went on to build TrachtHouse were leather workers rather than retailers, and the idea that an entire category of clothing had quietly been replaced by fancy dress bothered them enough to do something about it.
The rule from day one was short. Real hide only. Every seam sewn, never glued. Every piece cut to the measurements of the person who ordered it instead of to a chart written for somebody else. That rule has not moved since, and it is still why we turn down bulk orders that would need us to compromise on the leather.
The three hides we work in
Almost every question we get before an order comes down to which leather to choose. Here is the honest version.
Deerskin
The lightest and the most expensive of the three. Fine grained, breaks in within days and stays supple for decades. The traditional choice for lederhosen that get handed down, and what we reach for when a piece is meant to last a lifetime.
Softest . Lightest . Most expensive
Goat suede
A brushed nap with a warm matte finish. Forgiving about weather and about wear, comfortable across a long day, and the easiest leather to live in year round. Most people who wear Trachten more than once a year end up here.
Velvet hand . Everyday wear
Cowhide
Heavy, structured and stubborn in the best way. It holds a sharp shape on jackets, belts and bags, resists abrasion far better than the other two, and darkens beautifully with handling. It asks for a break in period and repays it.
Toughest . Ages hardest
One pair of hands, start to finish
Your order does not travel down a line. One artisan owns the piece from the moment the pattern is chalked onto the hide to the moment the last stitch is pulled through. That is why the work stays consistent and why a fault is rare, and it is also why we can tell you who made your pair if you ask.
- Embroidery is stitched on a treadle machine by hand, never printed and never pressed.
- Buttons on traditional pieces are genuine Hirschhorn antler, not moulded resin.
- Thread is waxed linen everywhere the seam takes strain.
- Every piece is inspected seam by seam before it leaves the atelier.
It takes one to two weeks per piece. Slower than a warehouse, and slower than we would sometimes like. It is also the only way we know to make something still worth wearing in twenty years.
Four things we will not do
Have a question before you order?
Sizing, hides, festival deadlines, anything at all. Every message is read by a person and answered within one working day.
Talk to us