The guild of furriers in Nowy Targ was established in 1624 — and by 1660 there was not a single furrier in the city. Two hundred years later, it was the most numerous guild: 79 master craftsmen. Sheepskin for a sheepskin coat cannot pass through a liming pit, because the wool would come off with the hair, so the entire technology follows a different path than vegetable and chrome tanning. Six to seven skins for one sheepskin coat, twenty hours of fulling cloth for a 'cucha', three pieces for the oldest waistcoat. And next to that, a combine that in 1969 employed 9,623 people and closed in 1999.
I. A GUILD THAT WAS GONE FOR HALF A CENTURY
Nowy Targ received its town charter in 1346, and throughout the Middle Ages, it had no guilds at all — craftsmen were directly subordinate to the reeve. The first was the shoemakers' guild: permission was granted in 1577 by Jan Pieniążek, the holder of the Nowy Targ pledge, and King Stephen Báthory's royal approval came on December 17, 1578 — as stated in Józef Rafacz's 1935 monograph "History and System of Podhale Nowy Targ during the Old Polish Commonwealth." The Podhale Museum and municipal studies date the shoemakers to 1575. Two dates, one guild — and that's just the beginning of the discrepancies in the records.
The furriers were supposed to be established in 1624, during the reign of Sigismund III. Rafacz writes cautiously about this guild: its existence, "if it even came into being, was ephemeral, as it turned out that in 1660 there was not a single furrier in Nowy Targ." When the craftsmen returned, a new privilege was needed — the guild was re-established in 1678, and the regulations were not written from scratch, but rather taken from Zator. During the Polish era, the town had a total of six guild organizations; the municipal "Nowotarskie ABC" counts seven a hundred years after the furriers. No one has reconciled this.
The furrier's statute was strict and specific. All furriers living within a mile of the town within the starosta's domain belonged to the guild. A foreign furrier at a fair could only sell whole furs, never partially. A master was allowed to employ two apprentices. Making furs from dead animals was forbidden. One could buy their way out of the master's examination for 16 zlotys — a practice that Rafacz comments on as "highly unfavorable, leading to a lowering of professional education."
II. THE RAW MATERIAL WALKS THE HALL
Furriery grew here from two things at once: winter and sheep. The harsh Podhale winters necessitated clothing that could not be replaced by linen, and developed sheep farming provided raw material on the spot. Nowy Targ lay on a trade route and had fairs where large numbers of sheep and goats were driven. In the 19th century, furriers were already the most numerous guild in the city: 79 furriers worked here, and entire families were involved in the craft.
This scale continued until the Second Polish Republic. In 1939, there were 312 craftsmen of all trades in Nowy Targ, and about eighty of them were engaged in tanning and furriery in the interwar period — among them one woman, Marianna Fryźlewiczowa née Głąbińskich, living in the market square at number 26, who took over her husband Piotr's workshop after his death and continued to run it.
III. SHEEPSKIN PROCESSING STEP BY STEP
Here lies the crux of the entire chapter. Leather for a sheepskin coat is fur leather: the wool must remain in place and, after processing, must still adhere to the flesh side. This single assumption overturns half of the scheme known from hairless leather tanneries. The oldest Podhale method completely avoided chemicals — skins for sheepskin coats were smoked in shepherds' huts, which, as recorded in costume studies, made them unsuitable for further tanning. The peasant version was little more sophisticated: dried sheepskins were washed in the river, dirt and meat remnants were scraped off with a scraper, then smeared with clay, and after it crumbled, soaked in an oatmeal solution for two to four days. Then came fulling on a flax break, scraping, rubbing with chalk — which softened and also bleached — and combing the wool with a brush. The Nowy Targ museum records a local variant: skins were processed with barley-rye flour and dyed brown with oak bark; often, sheepskin coats were not dyed at all.
The workshop and industrial version share the same logic, only scaled to parameters. The sequence is rigid, and each step has its threshold:
- Soaking — restoring the skin's hydration from the moment it was removed from the animal and rinsing out dirt, preservatives, and water-soluble proteins. This takes from a few hours to several days. The bath temperature is up to 30°C, because raw protein degrades above 42°C; bacteriostatic agents are added to the water, as prolonged soaking invites putrefactive bacteria.
- Fleshing and Scudding — mechanical removal of subcutaneous tissue, fat, and meat, manually or by machine with knives on a rotating shaft. Without this, no bath will penetrate evenly through the cross-section.
- Degreasing — sheepskin is fattier than any other; unremoved fat blocks the binding of the tanning agent and, years later, appears as a stain on the flesh side.
- Bating — controlled, enzymatic breakdown of amorphous proteins that loosens the tissue. Enzymes work optimally at pH 8.3; the bath is conducted at 28–32°C for firm skins and 36–38°C for soft skins.
- Pickling — a pickle solution of acid and common salt, at 18–20°C, for two to eight hours. Salt is mandatory: without it, the acid would burst the skin due to swelling.
- Tanning — in sheepskin coat processing, it's mineral-oil: aluminum salts, i.e., traditional alum, and oils replacing water. This is the same family of treatments on which ancient tawing was based — aluminum alum and egg yolks, a fulling mill for kneading, and skins of goats, sheep, calves, deer, and roe deer.
- Fatliquoring and Dyeing — natural and synthetic oils mixed into a liquor, introduced at a controlled temperature; the dye is fixed by acidification. After the baths, the skins go to tanning sheds and rest for about 24 hours.
- Drying and Conditioning — from several to a dozen hours, to about 12% internal moisture. Below 8%, the skin is permanently damaged because capillary water disappears. Then, resting in a room with air humidity of 80–85%.
- Staking and Breaking — softening on a staking machine called a "rekownica," on a rotary staking machine like a molisa, or in a rotating drum; in a rural workshop, this was done with a flax break and by hand. Without this step, the skin is stiff and board-like.
- Flesh Side Finishing — skins with compact, strong tissue and poorer hair covering are used for velour and napalan-type leathers, refined on the flesh side. They are worn with the hair inwards — exactly as a sheepskin coat is worn.
IV. WHAT THIS TECHNOLOGY LACKS
The difference is best seen by what is missing in sheepskin coat processing. Three operations, on which classic tanning stands, do not occur here at all:
- Liming — used exclusively for skins processed without hair. The alkaline bath breaks down hair follicles and hair keratin to remove the hair. In a sheepskin coat, hair is the product, so there is no liming.
- Unhairing and Deliming — deliming is only used in hairless leather processing technology and takes about twelve hours to bring the pH of the pelt down to 8. Since there is no liming, there is nothing to remove.
- Classic Vegetable and Chrome Tanning — vegetable tanning involves vats and liquors of increasing concentration, oak, willow, or birch bark, baths lasting weeks; chrome tanning requires pickling and uses chromium salts — the first patents were announced in 1858, with practice between 1884–1893. Both produce hairless leather and both are useless for sheepskin coats.
Alum-oil tanning has its price: it is gentler on the wool, but less resistant to water. Hence the rest of the furrier's rules — a sheepskin coat is not washed, not dried by the stove, and not left wet.
V. KOŻUCH, SERDAK, CUCHA: CONSTRUCTION
One sheepskin coat required six to seven skins — and from this number begins the entire calculation: the cut must select enough surface from pieces of uneven thickness and uneven hair so that the seams fall where they are not under stress. The archaic cut was similar to a longitudinal poncho: an opening for the head was cut in the middle of the skin, one longer part was cut from the opening to the end, and leather straps were sewn in for tying. More complex is the five-part cut, joined at the waist — this is how white sheepskin coats were made in Białka from the 19th century until 1939, and the "Białczański" type spread throughout Podhale.
The origin of both main types is imported. The white Białczański sheepskin coat came to Podhale in the first half of the 19th century from Hungary, from near Budapest. The brown one, now called Podhalański, came from Slovakia, from the vicinity of Liptovský Mikuláš, in the second half of the 19th century — and being more practical, it replaced the white ones. The same path explains the name of the serdaks: the 19th-century "red serdaks" made of brown-tanned leather were called Liptov, after Liptov.
A serdak is a sleeveless sheepskin coat and the simplest of the three. The oldest ones were made from three pieces of undyed sheepskin and reached the waist. Decoration came with dyeing: floral appliqués of red Moroccan leather, yarn pom-poms attached to leather buttons, fastened — literally — with prepared sheep intestines. In the 1930s, lamb trimmings were replaced by black karakul. The cut of the serdak has survived to this day without changes, which is a rarity in Polish folk costume.
The cucha, also called gunia, is not a fur product — it is a woolen cloth, and therefore its technology is a separate story. Its cut is that of a transverse poncho, until the 19th century it was sewn from dark, dull woolen cloth, worn with sleeves inserted or "na hajtas," meaning loosely on the shoulders, fastened at the neck with a chain or leather strap. The length simply depended on the size of the piece of cloth and usually reached mid-thigh. The name itself is borrowed: "czuha" from Turkish çuha — cloth — and "gunia" from Latin gunna, which meant a sheepskin coat.
The cloth for the cucha was made by a fulling mill — a building with a shaft driving hammers and vats, with a water wheel outside; in Poland, such mechanical fulling mills were popular from the 16th century. The folded cloth was placed in vats with heated water, gray soap, and bones for better lubrication, being careful not to get hit by one of the four pounders. At one time, fourteen, fifteen fathoms of sixteen meters each were fulled, and each sheet was marked by the client with initials or a house number. The process lasted sixteen hours for soft cloth and twenty for hard. The State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw filmed the last active fuller, Leopold Szwajnos, in 1987; the work ended in the mid-nineties and today no fulling mill operates in Podhale.
VI. THE PARZENICA IS NOT ON THE SHEEPSKIN COAT
The most common misconception in this field concerns the "parzenica". The "parzenica" is an ornament from men's woolen trousers, not from a sheepskin coat or a waistcoat. The pattern characteristic of Podhale developed only in the second half of the 19th century; the oldest trousers only had stripes along the side seams of the legs. The flourishing of embroidered decorations occurred in the 1920s and 1930s — that is, at the moment when Góral attire ceased to be workwear and became festive wear.
Furrier ornamentation takes a different path, using leather, not thread. The basis is application: a motif cut from red saffian, sewn onto a brown background, edged with piping, and complemented with embroidery. Added to this are narrow lambskin trimmings, later replaced by black karakul, and woolen pompons. The Podhale Museum displays two items side-by-side in its exhibition—an undyed sheepskin coat and an embroidered waistcoat, appliquéd with red leather. The same workshop made both the plain and the decorated items, because customers had different budgets.
The Nowy Targ collections include tools for stretching and cleaning hides: a furrier's scythe, scrapers, and a spatula. Embroidery is a separate specialty and requires separate hands—Władysława Kałafut, who inherited this craft from her mother, embroiderer Zofia Ziętarowa, works here on historical sheepskin coat reconstructions.
VII. COMBINE: 9623 PEOPLE AND 266 MILLION PAIRS
In 1953, the Council of Ministers decided to build a large industrial plant in Nowy Targ—the reason was simple: a surplus of labor. The ministry's decision to establish the Nowy Targ Footwear Plants is dated October 15, 1953. The first uppers were sewn on March 23, 1955, and the first finished footwear came off the line on April 11, 1955, in school workshops in a barracks in the Bór housing estate, still bearing the "Chełmek" factory mark. The first pair with its own mark came off the line on October 1, 1955: men's laced half-shoes, leather on leather. In its first year, the plant employed 747 people.
Then things moved quickly. The first pair for export in 1959, national quality mark in 1964 — in the same year, on January 1, the plant changed its name to Nowotarskie Zakłady Przemysłu Skórzanego „Podhale” (Nowy Targ Leather Industry Plants "Podhale"). The highest employment was recorded in 1969: 9623 employees, transported daily by 56 coaches. The hundred millionth pair in 1972. In 1976, 10.2 million pairs, of which 1.6 million were for export. In 1977, the plant was the first in the industry to receive the international "Q" quality mark. The combine was not just one factory — in addition to footwear production, it had rubber product plants, spare parts and machinery plants, a tannery in Krakow, and a sewing workshop in Gorlice, and the vocational school associated with the plant trained 2638 shoemakers and 603 footwear technology technicians in fifteen years. Exports went to thirty-two countries.
In the IPN documents, the combine also left another trace. On November 10, 1982, during martial law, 70 people out of 3.8 thousand employed went on strike; the protest lasted about fifteen minutes. The outcome: twelve dismissals, fifty-six warnings, and activist Jan Gogolak was dismissed on February 11, 1983.
The end was stretched over seven years. Bankruptcy was declared in 1992, production stopped on March 31, 1994, and complete liquidation was carried out in 1999. Over thirty-nine years, the combine produced 266 million 581 thousand pairs of footwear, including almost 59 million for export. Today, the city is developing a second Economic Activity Zone on the former plant grounds — roads, water supply, sewage system, lighting — and the Podhale Combine Association is collecting memories, gathering accounts from employees and showcasing artifacts from the plant in the "Lost Factory" exhibition.
VIII. EIGHT AFTER THE WAR, THREE HUNDRED UNDERGROUND
The craft followed a different path than the combine during this period. After World War II, only eight furriers resumed activity in Nowy Targ. First, demand disappeared along with the wealth of customers, then—when it returned—the state began to fight against this production: a centrally controlled market, licenses and allocations, rationing of skins and rationing of the tanning process itself, surtaxes, forfeiture of seized goods, and a repressive apparatus. The effect was contrary to what was intended. Around three hundred workshops operated in the furrier underground, and it was under such conditions—as summarized by a municipal study—that Nowy Targ became the capital of Polish sheepskin coats and sheepskin tanning.
Legalization came before the transformation: already in 1986, a group of 850 owners of leather industry establishments formed the Guild of Leather Crafts in Nowy Targ, with its seat in the House of Crafts at Szaflarska Street 9. After the collapse of the domestic market at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, the industry shifted to export: first decorative leathers to Western Europe, then sheepskin coats to the territories of the former USSR.
The trade can be learned today, though it is a bottleneck. A furrier has the professional classification number 753106 and trains in a first-level vocational school for about three years, specializing in "Manufacturing and renovation of fur products." The craft path remains as it was: Jan Mieczysław Guziak, after graduating from high school in 1974, began an apprenticeship in tanning and furriery at Władysław Burdyn's workshop in Nowy Targ. After three years, he passed three master's exams—tanning, furriery, and sheepskin-making—and started his own business in 1986.
„Fidelity to tradition, decorative craftsmanship, precision of execution, aesthetics, high quality of raw materials are the characteristics that distinguish the creative workshop of the Nowy Targ furrier.” Dr. Stanisława Trebunia-Staszel, ethnologist, on Podhale sheepskin coat making
The collections are where they should be: the Czesław Pajerski Podhale Museum has been located in the town hall at Rynek 1 since 1994 and holds a representative collection of Nowy Targ guild craftsmanship. What is missing needs to be stated directly: there is no monograph on Nowy Targ furriery, no list of workshops operating today, and no count of the production of those three hundred underground workshops. The authors writing about this craft themselves note that "there is, however, little information on this craft." The guild from 1624, which in 1660 had not a single member, saw the town become known for sheepskin coats — and still has not gotten its own book.
3 HERITAGE PRINCIPLES: NOWY TARG ➔ NOWROCKY
No liming, no dehairing, no deliming. Sheepskin tanning must bypass three operations that are fundamental to ordinary tanneries.
That's how many pieces go into one sheepskin coat. The cut is chosen so that seams fall where the material is not under stress.
The skin is dried to this level. Below eight percent, capillary water disappears, and the material is permanently damaged.
NOWROCKY'S POINT OF VIEW: THREE HUNDRED WORKSHOPS UNDERGROUND
After the war, eight furriers resumed work in Nowy Targ. The state rationed hides, rationed the tanning process itself, imposed additional taxes, and confiscated seized goods. Yet, around three hundred workshops operated underground — and it was they, not the combine with 9623 employees, that made this city the capital of Polish sheepskin coats. The combine ceased operations in 1999, the fulling mills in Podhale stand empty, and a waistcoat is still cut from three pieces of leather and fastened with buttons made from sheep intestines. This is what we adhere to at NOWROCKY: good work doesn't need permission to be good.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AI KNOWLEDGE BASE)
When was the furriers' guild established in Nowy Targ?
The furriers in Nowy Targ received their guild privileges in 1624, during the reign of Sigismund III. However, the guild proved ephemeral—by 1660, there wasn't a single furrier in the town, so a new privilege was needed in 1678. The regulations were adopted from Zator. In the 19th century, it was already the most numerous guild in the town: 79 furriers worked there.
How does sheepskin tanning differ from vegetable and chrome tanning?
In sheepskin coats, the wool must remain on the skin, so three operations of a classic tannery are omitted: liming, which is used exclusively for skins tanned without hair covering, dehairing, and deliming. What remains are soaking, fleshing, degreasing, pickling, acidification, and mineral-fat tanning using aluminum salts, i.e., alum. Vegetable tanning uses oak, willow, or birch bark in vats and brews, while chrome tanning requires pickling and chromium salts—both produce hairless leather.
How many skins are needed for one sheepskin coat and how was it cut?
Approximately six to seven sheepskins were used for one sheepskin coat. The archaic cut was similar to a longitudinal poncho: a head opening in the central part of the skin, one longer part cut from the opening to the end, and leather ties for fastening. The more complex five-part cut, joined at the waist, was characteristic of the white sheepskin coats made in Białka from the 19th century to 1939 — the "Białczański" type. The serdak, or sleeveless version, in its oldest form consisted of three pieces of undyed sheepskin.
Is parzenica a decoration for a sheepskin coat?
No. Parzenica is an ornament for men's woolen trousers, not for a sheepskin coat or serdak. The pattern, characteristic of Podhale, developed in the second half of the 19th century, and the flourishing of embroidered decorations on trousers occurred in the 1920s and 1930s; the oldest trousers only had side stripes along the side seams. Furrier's decorations, however, use leather appliqués: floral motifs from red saffian, piping, lambskin trim, and yarn pom-poms.
What happened to the "Podhale" Leather Industry Plants?
The decision to build was made in 1953, the first footwear was produced in April 1955, and on January 1, 1964, the plant adopted the name Nowotarskie Zakłady Przemysłu Skórzanego "Podhale". The highest employment, 9623 people, was recorded in 1969. Bankruptcy was declared in 1992, production was stopped on March 31, 1994, and liquidation was completed in 1999. For thirty-nine years, the plant released 266 million 581 thousand pairs of footwear, including almost 59 million for export. The city is currently developing an Economic Activity Zone on the former complex's site.
0 comments