BASF provides inspiration to the leather and fur industry with a new catalogue

Double-face sheepskins in natural colors for the winter season

* Thirty fashionable colors and recipes

* Trends for the world market

Ludwigshafen, Germany – BASF leather experts have now published Inspirations for Fur, a new catalogue showing the fashionable for double-face sheepskins, as part of their successful Inspirations for Leather series.

The Edition Siberia collection combines, the soft colors of the snow and ice of the Siberian winter with the natural, earthy shades of the tundra in summer. The shades range from pale beige through to full ochre and warm brown. Muted blue evokes icy rivers and streams, and dark red suggests arctic foliage and berries. Grey and green symbolize the bare trees and bushes in winter.

Gerhard Wolf, head of global technical service for leather at BASF, is confident that European design will enjoy great success on the world market: “Our technicians in Spain, Italy and Turkey have an excellent eye for the latest color trends in both the leather and the sheepskin sectors. Our leather and fur experts worked very closely together to produce this double-face sheepskin catalogue”.

As double-face sheepskin expert Gabriel Vizcaino-Caballero, BASF Curtex S.A., Spain pointed out: “There is a trend in the garment industry towards soft, lightweight skins, and we have taken special care to follow this trend. We want to inspire our customers with these new colors, but we have also ensured that these skins can be easily reproduced”.

The catalogue also contains details of the formula used to produce each color. All of the skins in the collection can be used for garments, and they can also be used as decorative trim for shoes and hand-bags.

BASF Performance Chemicals - always one idea ahead!
The product range of BASF’s Leather Chemicals business unit includes chemicals for all wet-end and finishing processes in the leather and fur industries. With a worldwide manufacturing and marketing organization, we are one of the leading suppliers in these fields. Further information on our products may be found at: www.basf.com/leather

About BASF
BASF is the world’s leading chemical company: The Chemical Company. Its portfolio ranges from oil and gas to chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals. As a reliable partner BASF helps its customers in virtually all industries to be more successful. With its high-value products and intelligent solutions, BASF plays an important role in finding answers to global challenges such as climate protection, energy efficiency, nutrition and mobility. BASF has more than 95,000 employees and posted sales of almost €58 billion in 2007. Further information on BASF is available on the Internet at www.basf.com.

Note to editors:
Photos are now available for download from the BASF homepage www.basf.de/pressefotos under the key word “Performance Chemicals”, search term “Edition Siberia”.