I did comment under one of his cr*p videos, but I believe I can reach all the right people here. So please let me debunk this nonsense.
So... here is an Alma made from VVN leather and a Pochette Voyage from black Épi. Both photos are official press photos from the website with 0 Photoshop. I just zoomed in.
So the VVN of the Alma is a pure, absolutely natural, vegetable tanned full grain cowhide, it is the topmost layer of the skin, and after the tanning it is totally untreated. This is why it is so delicate and porosus. It gets dark with time from light and hand oils, you all know the drill. The key aspect that I highlighted are the pores that you can clearly see from up close. THAT is a very high quality leather my friends. But people can ask, where are the "grains" if it is full grain? The grain of the Taurillon or Togo comes from an extra step in the tanning process, the leather by default is just like ours.
Let's get to the Épi. It is a HEAVILY treated leather: deep dyed, pressed with the wavy pattern (I call them dunes) and then they apply a thin paint layer onto the top of the dunes to create a duo-tone effect. Sometimes the colour of these are quite contrasting and make the depth effect extra pronounced (like on the Honey Gold colour) or they almost blend perfectly (like on Coquelicot). They usually skip this last step on the Men's line items, so they are more matte looking, but most Women's stuff get this extra finishing touch. So all in all, this is a heavily treated leather, but that is the point of this line. To be extremely durable and weather resistant.
And the key question is: what kinda leather they are treating this heavily? Yes, the exact same leather that the Alma has. Spoiler: see the pores.
Leather is not rare at all, and Vuitton can easily source only the highest quality cowhides for themselves. They don't need to use tricks to hide imperfections and use lower quality leather. You can ask: why is not everything made of Nomade and Taurillon then? Durability. People need tough work horse bags, weather resistant bags, bags that will looks just as nice after 10-15 years. Épi bags, Taïga bags are doing just that. And since they are super durable, they are easier to work with. They won't get scratched up in the factory while they are being sewn together. Less likely to get damaged during transport or in the store while people are checking them out on the shelves. That's it. It is just safer and easier in every sense. That is why Épi costs less than Taurillon or Millesime. Not because it is a cr*p leather pressed with a plastic coating (which never was the case).
And also they needed to build a hierarchy of good-better-best for the leathers, and they chose that the more natural finish it has, the more expensive it will be. But it could have gone the other way around too.
Disclaimer: he is a nice guy, he just wants to build his channels as quickly as possible, and he chose to bash luxury brands without any proper research or knowledge about high leathercraft. Probably very entertaining to people who never touched a Vuitton and love the simple "expensive bags = all cheap, rich people = idiots" message. He is an amateur and his bags are lightyears behind what Peter Nitz or any of the high-end indie craftsmen make. If Peter talks sh*t about even Hermès messing up their bags, he is legit, but this guy has 0 credibility when it comes to haute maroquinerie.
But to be honest, I enjoy seeing these bags getting disassembled nonetheless, so exciting to see the anatomy of them. It would be just way better to watch them without all the misinformation that gets told during the videos.
just a huge luxury nerd and leathercraft nerd here. And the leathercraft people have a vibrant community online, just as this one. They share tips, tricks, gossip, everything. Just an example: Hermès is very secretive about who they are sourcing the leather from, and also the tanneries are not allowed brag about it on their website. But informally everybody knows.