KS
are as close as you'll get to leading edge leathers in this country, probably
the world.
They focus on protection and when the CE thing came along, decided only
to make CE-marked suits. This is fine, though it involves an awful lot
of paperwork research and expense, only to find big gaps in the way the
standard is utilised and pretty well no enforcement.
For example, certain areas of suits can be Kevlar weave, which, in single
ply could make them more flexible, more comfortable and lighter, except the
standard calls for 2-material, which isn't much better than using leather.
Brian Sansom (who is BKS) dutifully used 2-ply, but has seen other makes,
carrying the both CE mark and single ply panels.
Kevlar, an aramid fibre, is used in many things. In this case, it's a Swiss-developed
material called Keptrotec, 30% Kevlar 10% Lycra and 10% some rubbery material,
woven with Cordura, which Brian describes as a 'sort of industrial cotton'.
It's light, stretchy and has Kevlar's amazing anti-tear properties.
The rest of the suit's panels are leather, cow hide from one British tannery,
1.3 to 1.5mm thick and Brian can specify different levels of stiffness and
stretchiness, which affects the abrasive strength and tear resistance The
chemical curing processes determine this softness and flexibility, along with
any dyeing or bleaching (to a choice of 42 colours). it also affects waterproofing
. all hides have a certain amount (cows don't leak after all) but water washes
out grease in
An electronic colouring set. Change your mind at a click of a button. If Michelangelo
had one of these, the Sistine Chapel would still be in primerUsing the right leather in the right place makes the suit strong where it needs to be but soft and flexible where you need it to be.
The customer sees the design on some Corel software, which lets him put in colours, stretch panels and other styling features until the suit looks the way he wants it.
What he won't see is some much more sophisticated computering - about £ 40,000-worth - in which an XY-plotter takes dimensions from templates and the customer's measurements and feeds them to Modaris software, which manipulates each panel on screen, then when the designer is happy, saves it in the customer's file. The same shapes are also sent to a cutter, which works like a plotter except it has blades instead of pens, to cut out the shapes
Brian's designs are modular- They boil down to four basic suits, whose panels allow different leather to be combined in the optimum way for strength and comfort. Some areas have double or triple layers, others contain body armour and, as each has a choice of colours there's an enormous number of combinations to give individual styling without resorting to cosmetic panels stitched over the top of the 'proper' leathers.
How they're stitched together makes all the difference to their performance. The BKS manual lists 17 different seams and, when material is submitted for the Cambridge Standard there has to be a sample of every combination of leather and seam used in the suit.
This may be tedious but the test has advantages, too. Through it they've discovered that certain seams are stronger than the panels, so where a single piece of leather would have been used in the past,
Screen works out
how many cows will be needed for each panel.Question: if all these cows are being slaughtered because they're mad, will the price of leather come down
