Visited quite a few retailers selling Sofa mainly made of leather and Fabric material. Generally most established retailers are providing both the range due to demand and price points with leather being the more expensive option.

Both materials have their positive and negative points. Some prefer fabric being more breathable and washable while others prefer leather being easier to clean, maintain and the looks.

For me, after using quite a few sets of leather and fabric sofa, my personal preference is leather material mainly for the maintenance and durability.

Now for leather, there are many types of leather from Aniline, Semi-Aniline, Corrected Grain, Split Leather and bonded leather, sometimes called synthetic leather. These terms can be googled easily as it is standard terminology of leather used in the sofa industry. However, today almost all retailers (including established ones) in Malaysia use the name Bovine leather and this is a very confusing term. Googled this and you can see that it is not a common terminology used for leather. Bovine is a term meant for hoof animals, which include cattle, the bison, African buffalo, the water buffalo, the yak, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. So in short cow is a bovine but bovine is not a cow.

In case where the term Aniline or Semi-Aniline is used, you can expect some premium on the sofa.

Last but not least, leather comes in different thickness, generally 1.5mm or 1mm.

Anyone feel free to share your experience about your sofa purchase.

Personally prefer fabric sofa. Coz it can be washed. Second, colour coordination. Thirdly, its cooler and breezier compared to leather. Leather is always more comfy in air conditioned room. And always go for genuine leather which is really expensive. the rest bonded or bovine what not is just crap..peeling off in few years time, hot and ugly.

Just my 2 cents.

I prefer fabric sofa as well. Just bought a fabric sofa recently

Just want to share my experience on leather and fabric sofas.

I owned 2 leather sofa sets. One white sofa set of about 10 years old and another blue set of about 8 years old. Both are in 1 + 2 + 3 seaters configuration. The white set is in my upstairs small living while the blue set is on the ground floor main living room. The blue set sofa is heavily utilized as it is on the ground floor.

Today, the blue sofa set is rather seasoned but wear and tear is rather minimal. The white set still looks quite good despite the age. Of course, both the design are outdated today.

I also find that breathability for both the leather sofa sets to be different too. So leather choices makes quite a big difference to the comfort.

About 10 months ago, I bought a fabric sofa (1 + 1 + 2 + 3 seater) and moved the blue leather set to another room as I felt the living room require something newer, modern and that thinking that fabric is more breathable. Being in the heavily utilized zone the fabric wear and tear is very visible. Not only the colour changes but the wearing of fabric is obvious. For this I have just ordered a new fabric cover for change and it cost me RM800. This is rather costly considering it is only 10 months in used. Not to mention whenever I have visitors on a hot day, the thought of sweat being absorbed through the fabric into the cushion. For this I need to sun the cushion which is rather cumbersome. Also, the thought of dust mites and allergy is something to consider as well.

That's why in my earlier posting, I prefer leather due to the durability and low maintenance.

Anyway this is only my feel. Others may feel otherwise.

I prefer leather as well and agree 100% what you said. One more thing I might add, fabric stains easily and also retains smell. Only problem with leather sofa is they are mostly too chunky for small living rooms

Btw i have a leather set for sale if you are interested. It's too big for my living room.
http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?act=ST&f=220&t=2176416

This post has been edited by idoblu: Jan 8 2012, 07:45 AM

leather - easy maintainance
fabric - homely feel

Leather = dead mammals skin.. aiyerrrr

Fabric feels more comfortable and i can sleep on the sofa.

Leather if felt asleep, wake up sweat.

thanks for the info! i was searching what grade is bovine leather
Is Aniline the best leather? is semi-Aniline better since it's less stain absorbent compared to Aniline?
what thickness should i choose? @ milano haus there is cat 1,2,3 , cat 1 being the thinnest. the salesgirl also said that cat 3 is thickest n softest
Can you recommend me shops to check out? im planning to get either a 3+3+2 or 3+2+1 set @ RM 10-15k

so far ive only checked out Milano Haus which quoted 3+3+2 for RM12+k [Aniline , Cat 1]
the salesgirl said the leather is from italy but the sofa is manufactured in shanghai
6 yr warranty but 3 month waiting

thanks in advance!

at least leather skin is better than some 9-year-old Filipino kids who worked their fingers bloody for 12 cents an hour

eh u hang out here?

what i would like to say is the items sold in milano haus are highly marked up...too expensive...i already visited them few times to compare the price...same item but they sold almost 20-30% more than other shop..i dont dare to buy anything there even promotion because i afraid to become "stupid water fish"..

leather sofa will crack. true story.

what sofa was that then where would you recommend?

I don't have any shop to recommend...I just share my experience when I visited milano haus...a lot of items sold there that I survey are expensive than other shops even after discount..

I saw your budget 10K-15K...I guess you are looking for high-level sofa...As I know Rozel sell very expensive sofa too...I went in, came out within 5 minutes...

when a sofa can discount more than 50%, what does it mean? depend on how you think...

This post has been edited by tiensong: Jan 12 2012, 12:30 PM

actually the discount 50% is a very common practice for sofa shops lol especially lorenzo always writing sale. I will check rozel out, i checked milano because lots of people recommend, rozel has one complaint on here.

you can easily compare the price because most of them selling same/similar coffee table or dining table.....you can notice who marked up the price more..

about sofa i am not sure lar...milano said from italy...said italy designer....say nia who know is it true or not.....so, i leave it to those sofa expert here to comment...

good luck

Just be aware when you check out Lorenzo sofas. If you check some of the posts in this forum, there have been some complaints. Rozel included. I understand that Lorenzo sofas are now all manufactured in China, hence the quality is no longer the same as previous years.
Might be a good idea to check where the sofa is manufactured and what the warranty will cover.

yeah i've seen a lot of lorenzo n rozel comments. milano (imported range) also makes their sofas in shanghai.. Italy sofas would be twice the price @ about 25k but i don't like them because most designs are classic ones. Any complains on milano besides price?

I bought ikea Kivik sofa.no one has commented on it. Any comments?