Arion saddles are completely made in Basque Country with high quality leather from French tanneries. They are thus part of a leather tradition in the South-West of France.
At the end of the 19th century, the region lived at the rhythm of agricultural breeding and the leather industry was in full swing. More than 230 tanners and leather workers settled in the province of Labourd. Because it offerings, a ground favourable to the activity of vegetable tanning, and thanks to the presence of resources and the tauzin oak, one of the essences necessary to obtain the tanning.
As time went on, the urban elite developed a passion for the Basque rural world. But also for this iconic know-how around the work of leather. Numerous brands of leather goods, shoes, and saddlery were born in the region. Unfortunately, imports, competition from industrial tanneries, and oak disease tarnished the activity in the 1950s.
The leather tradition persists in the region thanks to the saddlery workshops. For decades, they have been perpetuating a local know-how cultivated by meticulous and rigorous craftsmen.
Committed to the French tanneries and its workshop in the Basque Country, Arion immortalizes this ancestral heritage. By offering a custom-made saddle our brand contributes to the development of the economy of our territory.