Leather trend articles and forecast 2011

LANXESS is looking ahead

Leverkusen – LANXESS, one of the world’s leading suppliers of leather chemicals, can give its customers a genuine competitive advantage with the color and trend forecast for spring/summer 2011. The specialty chemicals group has produced an own special collection of leather samples that shows the trends for the spring/summer 2011 season.

The trend collection is created in Italy, one of the main centers of the fashion industry, where the company has a competence center, including a laboratory and applications development department at Santa Croce sull`Arno (Tuscany). The samples show tanners what kind of appearance, surface touch and overall impression are going to be in fashion for leather in the future season. The trend collection also includes formulations and practical processing suggestions so that tanneries are well prepared to reproduce the new trends, whether floater type or washed look, waterproofed nubuck or negative embossed split leather, very soft and natural vegetable leather or glossy leather with gold effect. 

The leather experts from LANXESS have unveiled three fashion themes for spring/summer 2011:

Water Emotion
Summer, sun, sea – these three words are enough to describe the complexion of the coming season. Fashion proves itself to be an influential area – oceanic motifs dominate. The power of the water not only takes away all concerns, it also generates personal excellence. Fresh colors like riviera and hot coral dominate the trend in combination with sandy shades, partly with metallic reflections. 

Natural Lightness
Turbulent periods in time usually tend to generate maximum levels of creativity and spirituality. We begin to honor this living with uncertainties by searching for ease. In nature we can escape from rationality and find calmness. Quality and naturalness are in the spotlight. Leathers are very soft and fine. Light colors like lint and apple blossom will be combined with stronger tones like carrot and excalibur.

Sportal Finesse
During changing times we look for a new balance between clarity and distinctiveness on the one hand and free expression and individuality on the other. Sports activity catches on. Spare time is dominated by athletic, individual image cultivation. This tendency affects fashion - dynamics are in the foreground. The color concepts are full of clear and powerful shades like blazing yellow in combination with violet and fluorite green.

For a preview of the coming trends go to http://lanxessleather.com.

LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 6.58 billion in 2008 and currently about 14,600 employees in 23 countries. The company is represented at 43 production sites worldwide. The core business of LANXESS is the 
development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals.

Leverkusen, 	March 1, 2010
bol		(2010-00006e)

Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by LANXESS AG management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.

Information for editors: 
All LANXESS news releases and their accompanying photos can be found at http://corporate.lanxess.de/en/media/press-releases/.  Recent photos of the Board of Management and other LANXESS image material are available at http://fotos.lanxess.de/index_en.html. The latest TV footage, audiofiles and podcasts can be found at http://corporate.lanxess.com/en/media/audio-video/. 

You can find further information concerning LANXESS chemistry in our WebMagazine at http://webmagazine.lanxess.com.