Rashidia Leather Fashion

You have to go up to the first floor at No. 2/2 Topsia Road to find us. We are right by the Topsia Sports Federation, so there is usually some activity or shouting from the kids playing nearby. Leather work is a bit messy, so our floors are always covered in small bits of hide and thread that are hard to sweep up. The smell is the first thing people notice, that heavy scent of treated leather, but after working here for years, I don't even smell it anymore. It’s just the air we breathe. We have these heavy tables where the cutting happens and the light comes in through some old windows that face the street. It’s not the quietest spot in Kolkata, but it’s where we’ve been for a while now. Some days it feels like we’re just moving piles of jackets from one side of the room to the other. We don't have a receptionist or anything like that. If you walk in, you'll probably just see me or one of the guys with a measuring tape around our necks. We focus on the leather and the stitching. It's a bit of a climb up the stairs, especially when we are carrying heavy bundles, but we are used to it. The fan in the corner makes a clicking sound that we’ve stopped noticing. The leather comes in big rolls and we spend a lot of time checking each piece for marks.