Criteria when buying lederhosen

The leather

Chamois-tanned deerskin is often used to make traditional leather pants. The complex tanning process can take up to six weeks. Moreover, this process is not only time-consuming, but also requires a great deal of experience and dedication.
The advantage of chamois-tanned leather pants is that the natural materials used make the trousers breathable. This keeps them warm in winter and cool in summer.
No Lederhose can compete with chamois-tanned suede! It is particularly soft and is also considered the finest of all leathers.

The embroidery

When embroidering on leather, a distinction must first be made between hand embroidery and machine embroidery.
Machine embroidery involves stitching completely through the leather, whereas this does not happen with hand-embroidered designs. This hand embellishment of the entire Lederhose can take up to 80 hours, but you get a unique pair Lederhose with personality.
You can recognize handmade Lederhose by the fact that they have a horizontal S-shaped seam, also known as an S-seam, which cannot be produced by machine.

Saddle stitch seam

In the past, a distinction was made between sackmakers and tailors. Tailors sewed their seams on the inside so that they were not visible.
Saddlers, on the other hand, visibly stitched the leather edges together. They also put a strip of light-colored leather between the leather edges and then sew them together on the outside.
Today, the "Säcklernaht" refers to high-quality, elaborately hand-finished Lederhose.

Fit

As the leather expands somewhat after a while, you should make sure that the Lederhose fit snugly after purchase. However, if the deerskin trousers are too small or too big, you can use the gusset to help. The leather insert on the back of the waistband can be used to make the Lederhose bigger or smaller as required. The gusset can be pulled tighter or wider with a leather strap.

Knife bag

All good lederhosen have a knife pocket on the right-hand side, which is often embroidered with your initials. The pocket naturally contains a hunting knife, also known as a "Nicker" or "Feitel". The handle of the hunting knife is usually made of suede or antler.