Other Leather and Allied Product Manufacturing (U.S.) — NAICS 316990

An investor's primer. Figures are reported facts with citations; statements about where the industry is heading are labeled as judgments.

1. Overview

NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) code 316990 covers U.S. factories that cut and sew finished leather goods other than shoes and clothing — luggage, handbags and wallets, saddlery and harness, dog collars, industrial and novelty leather items — plus the same products made from leather substitutes such as fabric or plastic.[1][2] It is a small, mature, highly fragmented light-manufacturing industry: roughly 630 plants and about 11,300 workers producing around $2.0 billion of goods a year.[3][4] The workforce has contracted sharply over decades — the broader four-digit category (NAICS 3169) employed 40,900 people in 1987 versus 12,400 in 2024.[5]

The single most important thing for an investor to understand is that the U.S. barely manufactures the leather goods Americans buy. Almost all handbags and luggage sold here are imported, and even the famous "American" brands — Coach, Michael Kors, Tumi — design and market in the U.S. but stitch their products in Asia.[7][8] So the domestic manufacturing code (316990) captures only a thin slice of leather-goods economic activity, while the brand, wholesale, and retail value sits in other codes and offshore factories.

Public-market ways in: there is essentially no pure-play U.S. leather-goods manufacturer to buy on a stock exchange. Investors instead own the brand owners — Tapestry, Capri Holdings, Steven Madden, Fossil, Vera Bradley, and (Hong Kong–listed, seeking a U.S. listing) Samsonite — which are marketing-and-retail businesses that source production abroad.[11][12][14][15] Private ways in: the actual domestic makers are small, privately held craft and niche shops (equestrian tack, defense gear, heritage "Made in USA" brands, contract cut-and-sew factories) — the realm of small-business ownership, search funds, and lower-middle-market private equity, not public equity.

2. What it is and how it's structured

In scope (316990). Establishments that make, from purchased leather or leather substitutes: luggage and travel bags; women's handbags and purses; small personal goods (wallets, billfolds, key cases, coin purses); saddlery and harness; welding and other industrial leather products; leather dog collars and pet goods; and boot-and-shoe cut stock and findings.[1][2]

Two classification points are routinely misunderstood. First, "leather" is not required: luggage or handbags made from textile, vinyl, or polyurethane can belong in 316990. Substitution toward so-called vegan leather can therefore change the industry's material mix without moving production outside the NAICS code.[2] Second, NAICS applies to individual establishments, not brands or consolidated corporations. A New York handbag headquarters, a distribution center, and an Asian contract factory can belong to different industries even when they support the same brand. SEC issuer classifications use the older SIC system and do not prove that a company operates U.S. 316990 factories.

Explicitly excluded — and where those activities are counted:

• Footwear → NAICS 316210 (Footwear Manufacturing).[1]
• Leather tanning and hide finishing (the upstream step that turns raw hides into usable leather) → NAICS 316110 (Leather and Hide Tanning and Finishing).[1]
• Leather apparel, gloves, mittens, and belts → apparel manufacturing, chiefly NAICS 315990 (Apparel Accessories and Other Apparel Manufacturing).[1]
• Precious-metal handbags and purses (e.g., mesh-metal evening bags) → NAICS 339910 (Jewelry and Silverware Manufacturing).[1]

A history note for anyone comparing old data: through NAICS 2012 this activity was split across four codes — 316991 (luggage), 316992 (women's handbags and purses), 316993 (personal leather goods), and 316999 (all other). NAICS 2017 collapsed them into the single code 316990, so pre-2017 series won't line up one-to-one.[1][9][10] Long time series that treat the current six-digit code as unchanged are unreliable.

Ownership mix. The domestic industry is dominated by small, private firms — roughly 720 firms across about 630 establishments, averaging under $3 million of revenue each.[3][4] When the SBA adopted the revised classification, it found that 98.8% of firms represented by the underlying 2017 industries would fall below its 500-employee small-business threshold.[6] There are no dominant domestic manufacturers; the biggest identifiable players are private consolidators in niches (for example, Weaver Leather in equestrian and industrial tack).[24] The globally famous American leather-goods brands are public, but as brand/retail companies, not as domestic factories.

3. How big it is

U.S. federal statistics for NAICS 316990:

The HHI (a standard 0–10,000 concentration score; U.S. antitrust regulators treat anything under 1,500 as "unconcentrated") is just 249.8 — this is a very fragmented industry with no market-dominating firm.[4] The SBA (U.S. Small Business Administration) size standard of 500 employees means virtually every U.S. firm in the code qualifies as a small business.[25]

BLS reports a complementary measure: $1.978 billion of nominal sectoral output for the broader four-digit NAICS 3169 in 2024, up from $1.861 billion in 2022.[26] Sectoral output adjusts gross output for inventories and inter-establishment shipments, so it is not identical to Census receipts.

Three important caveats on the numbers:

1. The federal figures capture only U.S. factory activity — which is the small part. Private data providers that scope the category more broadly (design, importing, and distribution as well as manufacturing) put the "leather goods and luggage" market nearer $3.6 billion; the gap is definitional, not an error.[7] More fundamentally, the economic weight of American leather goods lives in imports and brands, not domestic plants — so 316990 dramatically understates the industry's real footprint in the U.S. economy.

2. A tail of tiny makers is likely undercounted. County Business Patterns counts employer establishments; it does not fully capture the many one-person artisan and custom leatherworkers (holster makers, wallet crafters, Etsy-scale sellers) who file as nonemployer businesses. Our source data does not include a nonemployer count for this code, so we can't size that tail here — but it exists and is not in the 633/11,305 figures.[3]

3. The historical employment decline is dramatic. NAICS 3169 employed 40,900 people in 1987 versus 12,400 in 2024 — a nearly 70% contraction as production moved offshore.[5]

4. The investable universe

There is no meaningful publicly traded pure-play U.S. leather-goods manufacturer. The listed companies below are brand, accessory, and luggage businesses — relevant because leather goods drive their revenue — but they manufacture predominantly overseas and therefore sit largely outside domestic NAICS 316990.

For global category exposure, the deepest leather-goods profit pools sit in foreign-listed luxury houses (LVMH, Hermès, Kering, Prada), and off-price retailers (e.g., TJX, Ross) move large volumes of the category — but these are not U.S. manufacturers either. A niche adjacency: Cadre Holdings (NYSE: CDRE) owns duty-gear maker Safariland, whose holsters and belts include leather, though most product is synthetic.

Private and other owners (where the actual domestic making happens): Weaver Leather (equestrian/industrial tack, Ohio; owned by Blue Point Capital, which has added Ohio Travel Bag and Rex Specs to the platform)[24][29]; Circle Y (saddles, Texas; owned by Kaspar Companies)[30]; heritage and "Made in USA" brands such as Filson, Shinola, Saddleback Leather, Frank Clegg, Lotuff, Frost River, Tanner Goods, Ghurka, and Col. Littleton[32]; and contract cut-and-sew shops (e.g., Portchester USA) that manufacture for designer labels. Upstream, the surviving U.S. tanneries that feed these makers — Horween, Wickett & Craig, Hermann Oak — are also private and in code 316110, not 316990.[20][21]

5. How the money works

This is a labor-intensive, low-capital cut-and-sew craft business. An owner buys hides or finished leather (or fabric/plastic substitutes) and hardware, and pays skilled workers to cut and stitch them into goods worth more than the parts. A typical factory cuts material by die, knife, or laser; skives or folds edges; adds lining, foam, reinforcement, zippers, and hardware; stitches and assembles the item; and then finishes, inspects, and packages it. There are two very different business models under the same code:

1. Contract / private-label shops. They stitch for brands and designers. Economics turn on labor productivity and capacity utilization: keeping skilled sewers busy, minimizing wasted leather (cut yield — hides are irregular and defects must be worked around, which is exactly why the work is hard to automate and why it offshored to low-wage countries), and marking labor up over cost. Margins are thin and customer-concentrated.

2. Own-brand makers. They sell finished goods, increasingly direct-to-consumer (DTC), at a premium. Here money is made on brand and pricing power, not manufacturing efficiency: a "Made in USA," heirloom, or bespoke positioning supports prices that cover higher domestic labor costs.

The brand-layer contrast. For the public brand owners, the value is the label, so the metrics are retail metrics — gross margin, full-price sell-through versus markdown, DTC mix, brand heat, and inventory turns. Tapestry earned a 75.4% gross margin in FY2025 while spending $744.5 million — nearly 11% of sales — on marketing; customers pay for the name, not the stitching.[11] Tapestry has been raising guidance on strong full-price Coach demand while Capri's brands markdown and shrink.[11][12] By contrast, Tandy Leather, with its 57% merchandise gross margin, still posted a $1 million operating loss — illustrating the burden of stores, distribution, and corporate expenses on a smaller business.[28] This split — healthy brand economics, hollowed-out domestic manufacturing — is the defining feature of the industry.

Input-cost cycle. The key raw material is leather, and its price swings matter. A structural oddity helps domestic makers: the U.S. is a major cattle-hide producer, and hide prices have been depressed for years as carmakers move away from leather seats and synthetics spread — cheap input for goods makers, but brutal for tanneries.[20] The Leather & Hide Council of America notes that 95% of U.S. leather-and-hide output is exported, underscoring that the upstream industry is far more export-oriented than finished-goods manufacturing.[31] Working the other way, 2025 tariffs raised the cost of imported finished leather, components, and hardware even for domestic assemblers.[8][23]

Cyclicality and pricing. BLS's real-output index for NAICS 3169 rose to 120.6 in 2022 from its 2017 = 100 base, then declined to 110.3 in 2024, even as nominal output increased — meaning pricing and mix bridged the divergence.[33] The BLS producer-price index for 316990 rose from 100 in December 2022 to 110.1 in June 2025.[34]

6. What drives demand

• Consumer discretionary spending and the fashion cycle. Handbags and personal goods are gifts and status purchases; demand tracks confidence, tourism, and "handbag heat" (Coach's Gen-Z resurgence is a current example).[11]
• Travel. Luggage is the biggest single product segment of the broader category (roughly 43% of revenue by one estimate) and rises and falls with air travel.[7]
• The luxury cycle. Premium leather goods swing with global luxury demand and the Chinese consumer.
• Equestrian, ranch, Western-wear, and pet ownership. Saddlery, tack, and leather pet goods are a steadier, less fashion-driven niche where domestic makers hold real share.[24]
• "Made in USA" and heritage/craft interest. A durable tailwind for small domestic own-brand makers.[32]
• Defense procurement. Holsters, slings, and gear bought under domestic-preference rules (see Regulation) support a protected niche.[22]
• Material substitution is not a one-way threat. Polyurethane-coated fabrics, recycled nylon, molded polycarbonate, and other substitutes can reduce demand for natural leather, but they also create product opportunities inside 316990. Sustainability claims are contested: natural leather is durable and often uses a meat-industry byproduct, while tanning has chemical and wastewater impacts; synthetic alternatives may avoid animal material but use plastics and coatings. Investors should diligence actual chemistry, durability, repairability, and end-of-life characteristics rather than accepting "leather" or "vegan" as sufficient ESG labels.

7. Regulation

• Trade and tariffs — the dominant regulatory force. Leather goods enter under Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) Chapter 42. On top of longstanding duties and Section 301 tariffs on China, 2025 "reciprocal" tariffs sharply raised rates on major sourcing countries, pushing import costs and retail prices up and accelerating a shift of sourcing away from China toward Vietnam, Cambodia, and India.[8][35][36] China's leather-goods shipments to the U.S. fell roughly a third in a year, ceding the top-supplier spot to Cambodia.[35] The Yale Budget Lab estimated tariff-driven price increases of about 10–20% for goods like handbags and gloves.[36] Imports also face Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) enforcement at the border.
• Labeling (FTC). The FTC's Leather Guides require truthful disclosure when material appears to be leather but is not, and address misleading claims about composition, country of origin, and performance; "Made in USA" requires that a product be "all or virtually all" domestic.[37]
• Product safety (CPSIA). The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act sets limits on lead and phthalates; children's leather items face stricter limits and third-party testing.[38]
• Environmental — mostly upstream. The EPA's Leather Tanning and Finishing Effluent Guidelines cover chromium, sulfide, oil and grease, suspended solids, and other pollutants from tanneries — not from goods makers that buy finished leather — but downstream companies retain supplier and reputational exposure to tannery practices. This regulatory burden shapes input supply by pushing U.S. tanning capacity to shrink or move abroad.[20][39]
• Domestic-preference procurement. The Berry Amendment requires the Department of Defense to buy domestically made textiles and leather goods, carving out a reliable market for U.S. makers of military holsters, slings, and gear.[22]
• Exotic leathers. Alligator, python, and similar skins are governed by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) permitting.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

The picture is a split screen. At the manufacturing level, the domestic base is fragmented (top-4 firms just 25.5% of revenue, HHI 249.8) and structurally shrinking — the natural state of a labor-intensive activity that offshored decades ago.[4] By contrast, the brand layer has consolidated aggressively: Tapestry rolled up Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman; Capri assembled Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, and Versace (Versace now sold to Prada); Samsonite consolidated Tumi, American Tourister, and Hartmann.[11][12][13][14] Tapestry's 2023–24 attempt to buy Capri for about $8.5 billion was blocked and abandoned, leaving Tapestry thriving and Capri struggling — a reminder that brand roll-ups don't guarantee success.[12]

For a domestic maker, the real competitor is not another U.S. plant — it's an import. Vera Bradley specifically identifies widely available contract manufacturing capacity as lowering entry barriers.[27] Survivors compete by being where imports are weakest: speed and small-batch flexibility, customization, equestrian/industrial/defense niches, and the "Made in USA" premium.

9. Risks

• Structural import competition. Roughly 90%+ of the category is imported; a U.S. maker with a cost-based model is always underpriced by Asia.[7][8]
• Tariff whiplash cuts both ways. Tariffs raise rivals' import costs (helpful) but also raise a domestic assembler's own imported leather, hardware, and component costs, and dampen end demand by lifting retail prices.[8][36][23] Vera Bradley reported that incremental duty costs reduced recent gross margin.[40] (Forward-looking: the net effect on domestic makers is genuinely two-sided and depends on where tariffs land and stick.)
• Input-price volatility and a hollowing supply chain. Leather prices swing, and the shrinking U.S. tanning base narrows domestic leather supply.[20]
• Scarce, aging skilled labor. Cutting and stitching leather is a craft; the workforce is small and hard to scale, capping domestic growth. Automation works best on repetitive, flat components; frequent style changes and deformable materials limit its economics.[32]
• Consumer cyclicality and fashion risk. Discretionary demand and taste shifts hit hard; luggage rises and falls with travel.[7]
• Substitution away from leather. Synthetic and "vegan" leathers, and the auto industry's move off leather seating, weaken the whole leather value chain.[20]
• Thin capitalization / no public access. Most domestic firms are tiny and privately held, limiting outside capital and liquidity.[4]
• Customer concentration for contract shops dependent on a few brand accounts.

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public routes. Buying "U.S. leather goods" on a stock exchange means buying brand and retail economics, not domestic manufacturing. The clearest names are Tapestry (TPR), Capri Holdings (CPRI), Steven Madden (SHOO), Fossil (FOSL), Vera Bradley (VRA), and Tandy Leather (TLF); Samsonite (HKEX: 1910) is the largest luggage pure-play and has shareholder approval to pursue a U.S. dual listing in 2026, which — if completed — would give U.S. investors a large, relatively pure luggage vehicle for the first time.[15] For the deepest category exposure, the global luxury houses (foreign-listed) dominate leather-goods profits, and off-price retailers offer indirect exposure.

Private routes. Owning the actual domestic industry is a private, small-business proposition: heritage DTC brands, equestrian and industrial/safety tack makers, Berry-Amendment defense suppliers, and contract cut-and-sew shops — plus, upstream, the handful of surviving specialty tanneries. These are search-fund, family-business, and lower-middle-market private-equity scale, illiquid and management-intensive, but they hold the niches where imports don't reach.[24][30][32] The decisive diligence question is which profit pool is actually being purchased: low-margin physical conversion, proprietary product manufacturing, wholesale distribution, or high-margin brand and retail. The same handbag can create activity in all four, but NAICS 316990 measures only the manufacturing establishment.

Near-term drivers to watch (forward-looking). (1) The tariff trajectory — the biggest swing factor; sustained high tariffs on Asian imports could modestly favor domestic and nearshore makers even as they raise input costs.[8][36] (2) The handbag/luxury cycle — currently bifurcated between winners (Coach) and laggards (Michael Kors).[11][12] (3) Travel demand driving luggage. (4) Leather prices and the health of the U.S. tanning base.[20] (5) Reshoring and "Made in USA" interest, which supports premium domestic makers at the margin. The base-case judgment: domestic manufacturing stays small and fragmented, the brand layer stays where the public-market money is, and tariffs — not any revival of U.S. factories — are the story that moves the numbers in the next few years.

---

Sources

1. NAICS Association. "NAICS Code 316990 — Other Leather and Allied Product Manufacturing (2022)." https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?v=2022&code=316990
2. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 NAICS Manual." https://www.census.gov/naics/reference_files_tools/2022_NAICS_Manual.pdf
3. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns, 2023 (NAICS 316990: establishments, employment, payroll)." https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
4. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 Economic Census — Concentration and receipts (NAICS 316990: firms, receipts, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI)." https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
5. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRED. "NAICS 3169 Employment (1987–2024)." https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/IPUEN3169W200000000.txt
6. Federal Register. "Small Business Size Standards: Adoption of 2022 NAICS for Size Standards." https://thefederalregister.org/documents/2022-13250/small-business-size-standards-adoption-of-2022-north-american-industry-classification-system-for-size-standards
7. IBISWorld. "Leather Goods & Luggage Manufacturing in the US — Industry Analysis, 2025." https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/industry/leather-goods-luggage-manufacturing/374/
8. CNBC. "Inside the leather trade war hitting handbags, boots and couches," 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/25/leather-prices-tariffs-trump-boots-handbags-furniture-twisted-x.html
9. U.S. Census Bureau. "NAICS Correspondence Search (316990)." https://www.census.gov/naics/?chart=2022&details=316990&input=316990
10. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "2017 NAICS Hierarchy Crosswalk." https://www.bls.gov/cew/classifications/industry/2017-naics-hierarchy-crosswalk.htm
11. Tapestry, Inc. "Form 10-K, Fiscal Year Ended June 28, 2025." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1116132/000111613225000019/tpr-20250628.htm
12. Fashion Dive. "Capri continues to struggle after Tapestry lifeline disappears," 2025. https://www.fashiondive.com/news/capri-q3-fiscal-2025-revenue-drops-versace-kors-choo/739320/
13. Fortune. "Behind luxury brands Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo lurks a holding company with millions in losses," 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/01/02/michael-kors-jimmy-choo-versace-capri-losses-john-idol/
14. PR Newswire. "Samsonite Group S.A. Announces Final Results for the Fourth Quarter and Year Ended December 31, 2024," 2025. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/samsonite-group-sa-announces-final-results-for-the-fourth-quarter-and-year-ended-december-31-2024-302400503.html
15. U.S. News / Reuters. "Hong Kong-Traded Samsonite Targets Dual Listing in US," 2026. https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2026-02-13/hong-kong-listed-samsonite-targets-u-s-dual-listing
16. GlobeNewswire. "Vera Bradley Announces Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Results," 2024. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/12/11/2995337/17650/en/Vera-Bradley-Announces-Third-Quarter-Fiscal-Year-2025-Results.html
17. Fort Wayne Business Weekly. "Vera Bradley ends U.S. production," 2015. https://www.fwbusiness.com/business/latest/businessweekly/article_b5260c5f-c2de-54bf-abfa-a93b6b8a088b.html
18. GlobeNewswire. "Steve Madden Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results," 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/02/26/3032739/0/en/Steve-Madden-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Results.html
19. GlobeNewswire. "Fossil Group, Inc. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results," 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/03/12/3041742/7982/en/Fossil-Group-Inc-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Results.html
20. Leather International (leathermag). "View from the US," 2024. https://www.leathermag.com/analysis/view-from-the-us-210324-11621086/
21. Nick's Boots. "Who Are Wickett and Craig Leather?" https://nicksboots.com/blogs/blog/who-are-wickett-and-craig-leather
22. Wikipedia. "Berry Amendment," 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_Amendment
23. Reed Leather. "The Impact of Tariffs on U.S. Imported Raw Leather Material Prices," 2025. https://www.reedsportswear.com/blogs/usa-leather-goods-industry-news-updates/the-impact-of-tariffs-on-u-s-imported-raw-leather-material-prices-a-comprehensive-market-analysis
24. Weaver Equine (Weaver Leather). Company site, 2025. https://www.weaverequine.com/
25. U.S. Small Business Administration. "Table of Size Standards (2023)." https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
26. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRED. "NAICS 3169 Sectoral Output (Nominal)." https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPUEN3169T300000000
27. Vera Bradley, Inc. "Form 10-K, Fiscal Year Ended January 31, 2026." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1495320/000162828026021640/vra-20260131.htm
28. Tandy Leather Factory, Inc. "Form 10-K, 2025." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/909724/000114036126006550/ef20060825_10k.htm
29. Blue Point Capital. "Blue Point Makes Local Platform Acquisition of Niche Market Leader Weaver Leather." https://www.bluepointcapital.com/news/blue-point-makes-local-platform-acquisition-of-niche-market-leader-weaver-leather
30. Circle Y. "About Circle Y." https://circley.com/about
31. Leather & Hide Council of America. https://usleather.org/
32. IndustrySelect. "U.S. Leather Manufacturing Industry: Key Facts." https://www.industryselect.com/blog/us-leather-manufacturing-industry-key-facts
33. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRED. "NAICS 3169 Real Sectoral Output (2017=100)." https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPUEN3169T010000000
34. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRED. "Producer Price Index — NAICS 316990." https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU316990316990
35. Eightx. "US Leather Goods Imports by Origin (HS 4202)," 2026. https://eightx.co/blog/leather-goods-import-origins
36. CNBC. "20 items and goods most exposed to price shocks from Trump tariffs" (citing the Yale Budget Lab), 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/trump-tariffs-20-items-and-goods-most-exposed-to-price-shocks.html
37. Federal Trade Commission. "Leather Guides." https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/leather-guides
38. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. "Soft Infant and Toddler Carriers — FAQ." https://www.cpsc.gov/FAQ/Soft-Infant-and-Toddler-Carriers
39. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Leather Tanning and Finishing Effluent Guidelines." https://www.epa.gov/eg/leather-tanning-and-finishing-effluent-guidelines
40. Vera Bradley, Inc. "Announces Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Results." https://investors.verabradley.com/news-releases/news-release-details/vera-bradley-announces-fourth-quarter-fiscal-year-2026-results
41. Compliance Gate. "Leather Product Regulations in the United States: An Overview." https://www.compliancegate.com/united-states-leather-product-regulations/