bicast leather

Does anyone own a piece of furniture upholstered in bicast leather, that is, synthetic leather? How well does it wear? Is it better or worse than genuine leather as a furniture covering?

Good quote, Violinist.

Has anyone ever been lied to by a furniture salesperson? I recently asked a furniture salesperson whether a particular sofa was real leather, and she said yes. I did research on the Internet about the sofa and learned that the material was bicast leather. This happened in the United States. Are there no regulations on leather products in the US? Should I report the incident to the Better Business Bureau?

There is a knot of furniture stores in town that carries what is called Scandivanian furniture. The designs are unique and modern-looking, but what the upholstery actually is the salespeople often misrepresent. In the present situation, I asked the salesperson whether the sofa was real leather, she said yes, I went home and Googled the living shit out of it, and I found out the thing was bicast leather. Shy of men's clothing, I don't know shit about leather. The entire store is full of bicast leather items, so how was I to compare? I want leather furniture that is going to last. I dug a little more into the terms used to distinguish types of leather in the furniture industry. The best info I found was on Wikipedia. I was trying to understand why Crate and Barrel charges $3K for a sofa and the Scandivanian store charges $1.5K. The difference was the term for the leather: top grain leather or bicast leather. There is another term: full grain. Between full grain and top grain is a gulf the size of the Atlantic, full grain being the best material. And yet the terms are so similar, one could easily be tricked, unless one knows what the different leathers look/feel/smell like, or one can get a salesperson to be honest, or one knows the manufacturer and its construction methods. All of this is beginning to feel a bit more like shopping for a suit. Or welted shoes.

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I think my family is in a place where a $7-8K piece of furniture would not be an appropriate choice. Nor do I believe where we live in the midwest has a competitive enough retail environment to justify hiring a professional interior designer. There's one store in town that deals the sort of furniture iammatt has in his place, but given that the salesperson was on tenterhooks while watching our son test out the samples in the store, I concluded I would feel the same if some of it were in my house.

What we have settled on is something right down the middle: a contemporary sofa covered in top grain leather with a kiln dried hardwood frame at a reasonable price. If it lasts 10 years, it will have done its job. My main concern with this purchase was to avoid a synthetic product, such as bicast, which is reconstituted leather covered with plastic. Top grain leather costs a fraction of full grain that Hancock & Moore uses. I appreciate the craftsmanship of their work. I just can't justify the cost of my appreciation at this time.