Our Story
Gusti Leather was founded by Christian Pietsch, our current CEO, in 2009. Headquartered in Germany, Gusti Leather has become one of the world's most trusted brands, ensuring unmatched quality and innovative designs throughout its range of products.
All great adventures begin with a small step. In our case, this happened when Christian Pietsch was on a trip to India as a student. He was inspired by the local leather producers he met there and Gusti Leather was born.
We started out producing fashion items and backpacks. We then moved into cycling products which proved to be a huge success for Gusti.
Since the company was founded, we have expanded to become a global market leader. Gusti Leather stands for close cooperation with producers and customer-focused customer support.
Bringing together contemporary and vintage styles, Gusti Leather designs leather products that will never go out of style. We are the market leader for an array of items including bags, backpacks, wallets, bracelets, saddle bags and stationery, as well as many more items. Every Gusti Leather product is characterised by its exquisite design, elegant colour, high quality and good functionality.
Our Mission
“Create fascinating and innovative leather products that make you look exquisitely styled and keep you on-trend.”
Our Vision
“We’re endeavouring to become a highly productive and effective organisation by promoting fairness and transparency in the workplace.”
Our Goals
A large portion of our turnover comes from items that are currently tanned using chrome and we’re aware that chrome-tanning has a negative impact on the environment. One of our goals is to source more leather that is tanned naturally and in a more environmentally friendly way. It’s important to us that we contribute to a more sustainable future and use more vegetable-tanned leather in our products as it uses resources more efficiently and is better for the environment.
Our second main goal is to become less dependent on online marketing and find alternative ways to stay in touch with our customers. So we’re aiming to be more present locally in city centres. One of the best ways to show up in different locations is by setting up pop-up stores. These temporary stores allow us to increase brand awareness and reach more customers who love leather products and want to buy high-quality leather products that will last them a lifetime. By increasing our presence in city centres, we want to create unique shopping experiences and share our philosophy about sustainable leather with as many people as possible.
Our Values
Adaptability
Adapt to changes and respond to them quickly.
Organisation
Maintain ethical behaviour at work, be punctual and fulfil our commitments on time.
Communication
Promote team collaboration and cooperation through clear communication.
Reliability
Demonstrate integrity through our professional conduct.
Improvement
Promote professional growth among our employees by sharing knowledge and collaborating in the workplace.
Philosophy in Practice
When it comes to customers, Gusti Leather places huge importance on transparent production and the sustainable use of materials that are in harmony with people and nature.
Leather: All of the leather we use to create our products comes exclusively from animals that are kept primarily for meat production and breeding. The animal hides are waste products that are processed and turned into high-quality Gusti leather items.
Transparency: We strongly support sustainability, ecology, animal welfare and human rights.
Discover Our Product Lines
Gusti Leather Nature
Our first brand was Gusti Leather Nature. The bags in this collection are mainly made from vegetable-tanned goatskin.
Gusti Leather Studio
The company's second product line is Gusti Leather Studio. These unique products are mainly made of buffalo and cowhide leather and are tanned using chrome.
Our Channels
Gusti Leather products are available on all major online and offline channels. Our e-commerce platforms present our range of products directly to our end customers in Europe, the UK, the USA and many other countries around the world.
You can also visit one of our stores in Germany, Austria or the Netherlands to check out our impressive range of leather products in real life. Alongside shopping, visit our DIY corners and get creative with leather to make beautiful keyrings, small bags, covers for your lighter and more.
Christian Pietsch, CEO Gusti Leder
You founded Gusti Leather about 14 years ago. What are you particularly proud of?
I'm proud of the team because they've managed to deal with a lot of different issues and improve our products. This is particularly important for our customers.
You visit India a lot. Why?
It's important that you know what's going on out there, both with our manufacturers and our team in India, it's important to meet each other in person.
So your manufacturers are in India?
Yes, in India and Italy. We also have quite a few manufacturers in Pakistan.
How important is sustainability to you at Gusti?
Sustainability is very important to me but it's a big word. I think it has to be broken down into smaller actions. What exactly did I do this month, quarter, year to make our business more sustainable? It's not just a matter of being labelled sustainable or not. It's more about what has been done this quarter to make things more sustainable.
What is your position on sustainability and what have you implemented so far at Gusti?
I think sustainability is a big issue. I don't think we need a sustainability manager though. I believe all of our team leaders need to think about what they can do to improve sustainability. We work on lots of different things in each area at the same time.
Can you name one of these things?
I'd say that 60 to 70% of our turnover currently comes from items that are tanned with chrome. This damages the environment, which is why one of our goals at Gusti is to use chrome-free leather in the future. 40% of our leather is already vegetable-tanned, but we want to be completely chrome-free from 2024.
What are your short-term goals this year?
We're currently working on lots of small projects. We've reduced the amount of plastic in our products, for example, and completely eliminated plastic bags. We now package our products in paper bags. But we've learned that paper isn't even that sustainable. So it's best that we send and receive the pure leather without any packaging. We're currently trying to coordinate this with our sales channels.
What do you want to achieve in the next few years?
I want to move away from our dependence on online marketing. Paying Google or Facebook for advertising isn't very sustainable for us, although we have to do it at the moment. So I want to increase our presence in city centres.
Are you raising animals specifically to create your leather? Or are the materials already available? Do you have access to these raw materials?
No animals are killed for our leather. Not specifically for our leather. You can see this in our prices. If a company is selling a crocodile skin leather handbag, it usually costs €500 to €600 because the animal was killed specifically for its skin. We, on the other hand, are using waste products from the meat industry. If we use waste products, it means we can offer our customers leather products that are affordable and sustainable. Leather can be considered sustainable because it's a by-product of the meat industry.
What has Gusti achieved so far?
I'd say our biggest achievement was finding our niche. We started out with fashion accessories, like backpacks, and then discovered our niche. I'm really proud of the fact that we're really focused on selling bicycle products. I don't think I've ever officially announced this though. Three years ago, I was struggling a bit and found inspiration and motivation through bikes. The success we've had with our bike products is, if you ask me, one of our greatest successes.
What do you love most about Gusti Leather?
I don't think there's just one Gusti Leather. It has different facets. We have our stores, where our managers and team members work hard every day and do their best to tinker, improve and sell our products. Then we have other parts of the company, like our logistics team, where we focus on improving processes so that we can ship our items faster. We try to reply to our emails quicker and another part of the company focuses on fixing as many items as possible.