Calfskin with a Saffiano cross-hatch pressed into it, wrapped over a TPU and polycarbonate shell and lined with Alcantara. It takes a drop of 6 m. Qi charging and NFC pass straight through the back. It is the entry point into our leather case family.
- 95% calfskin leather over a 5% TPU and polycarbonate shell.
- Lined with Alcantara. Rubber buttons. Raised edge around the camera.
- Saffiano cross-hatch embossed into the calfskin. Satin finish, textured.
- Water-resistant treatment.
- It takes a drop of 6 m, which is 19.7 ft.
- It holds up to 140 F / 60 C.
- Qi wireless charging: yes. NFC: yes. Dust proof: yes.
- Audio blocking: no, meaning the case does not muffle the speakers.
- Scratch protection: no.
- GENTCREATE hot-stamped in gold by hand, on the outside.
- Made in batches of 20 pieces across a 9-day run, with 1.39% color and texture variation between batches.
The cross-hatch is the point
Saffiano is not a kind of leather. It is a cross-hatch pattern pressed into finished leather under heat and pressure, and underneath it this case is calfskin.
On a phone case that pattern does more work than it does on anything else we make, because a phone is the one leather object that gets picked up and put down thirty times a day. A flat leather back reflects light as a single plane, so every handling mark reads as a line across it. A cross-hatch scatters that reflection into hundreds of facets, and the same mark has no continuous surface to interrupt.
It also grips. A textured back does not slide off a car dashboard, a sofa arm or a restaurant table the way a smooth one does, and it does not squirt out of your hand when you pull it from a pocket. That is a safety feature disguised as a finish.
Pressing the pattern also compacts the leather surface, which is part of why it holds its shape around the shell instead of relaxing at the corners over a year. The longer version, including how to tell a pressed cross-hatch from a printed one, is in our guide to Saffiano leather.
What is under the leather
This is not a leather case in the sense of a leather sleeve. It is a two-material construction and each layer has a job.
The shell is TPU and polycarbonate. Polycarbonate is rigid and spreads an impact across the whole back rather than letting it concentrate where the phone landed. TPU is flexible and absorbs, which is why the rails and corners use it: a corner has to deform and come back, and a rigid corner transmits the shock straight into the phone. That combination is what almost every serious protective case is made of, and it is what the drop figure below actually rests on.
The calfskin is wrapped over the outside of that shell. It is the part you touch, the part that ages, and the part that stops the case looking like a piece of equipment.
The inside is lined with Alcantara rather than left as bare plastic. Alcantara is a soft microfiber, and the reason it is there is that it is the layer against your phone's finish: a bare polycarbonate interior grinds grit against the back glass every time the case flexes. The buttons are rubber, which gives a defined click rather than the mushy press of a leather-covered button.
There is a raised edge around the camera. Set the phone face-up on a table and the lenses do not touch it. That raised lip of plastic is the most valuable protective feature on any case, because a scratched lens is a permanent defect in every photograph you take afterward.
Six meters, and what the number covers
It takes a drop of 6 m, which is 19.7 ft.
A drop rating is the height a case survived in a controlled test onto a specified surface at a specified angle. It is not a promise about your phone, because the case is not the only variable: the surface matters, the angle matters, and whether the phone lands face-down on gravel matters most of all. What a 6 m rating tells you is that this shell is built to a serious protective standard rather than a decorative one, and that a drop from a hand, a pocket or a table is well inside what it is designed for.
What it does not cover is the screen. This is a case, not a screen protector. Nothing here stops a face-first landing on a stone edge.
Wireless charging, NFC, and magnetic attachment
Qi wireless charging works through this case, and NFC works through it, so contactless payment and tags read without taking the phone out.
We are not making a MagSafe claim for this case.
From the iPhone 12 onward the magnet array is in the phone, not in the case. A magnetic charger or mount attracts the phone's own magnets straight through a non-magnetic case, so it will attach through this one. What a case with its own array adds is alignment and holding force, and what any case subtracts is distance: magnetic force falls off sharply with the gap, so leather over a shell holds less firmly than bare glass does.
An owner reports that a magnetic charger snaps on and works.
No scratch protection, stated plainly
This case has no scratch protection.
Scratch protection means a hard coat that resists a blade or a key edge. Leather is not that, at any price, from anyone. A key sharing a pocket with this case will mark it.
What the cross-hatch does instead, as above, is make ordinary marks hard to see. Those are two different problems and this case solves the second one well and the first one not at all. If you want a back that cannot be scratched, you want glass or coated polycarbonate, and you will be looking at a different product.
It resists fingerprints, which is a consequence of the same texture: skin oil has no flat plane to sit on and show.
140 F, 60 C
It holds up to 140 F / 60 C. Those two figures are the same temperature.
The number that matters in daily life is the car dashboard. A closed car in direct summer sun goes well past 60 C on the glass and on any surface behind it, and that is above what this case is rated for and above what your phone tolerates either. Leather dries and stiffens at sustained high temperature, and the pressed cross-hatch relaxes, which is the one way to flatten a pattern that is otherwise permanent.
Ordinary heat is not a concern. Wireless charging warmth, a pocket, a sunny day, a hot hand: all well inside it.
Made in twenties, and why two of these are not identical
This case is made in batches of 20 pieces across a 9-day production run, and the color and texture vary by 1.39% between batches.
Leather is a natural material dyed in lots. Two hides take dye slightly differently, two runs of emboss sit fractionally differently, and any manufacturer who tells you their leather product is identical unit to unit is either not using leather or not measuring.
What 1.39% looks like in practice is nothing you would notice on a single case and something you might notice holding two side by side in daylight. If you are buying a second case to match one you already own, that is the caveat. If you are buying one, it is simply what a batch-made leather object is.
The 9-day run is the other half of the same fact: this is not injection molding, and a batch of twenty is not stock sitting in a warehouse.
Seventeen device options, and why the right one matters
This case is cut for seventeen iPhone models across the 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 generations, and the selector on this page is where you choose. Availability differs by model and by finish.
Picking the exact model is not pedantry on a case with a raised camera edge. Camera islands moved and changed size between every one of those generations, and a case cut for the wrong one either leaves a lens exposed or covers part of it. Button positions and the mute control also moved. A case that is close is a case that is wrong.
What owners report
The recurring notes are about how it feels and how it wears rather than about protection, which makes sense: most people never test a drop rating. Owners describe the surface as refined and the case as aging well, and several bought it as a gift.
Questions
Does wireless charging work through it? Yes. Qi charging and NFC both pass through the back.
Is it MagSafe? We make no MagSafe claim for this case. A magnetic charger will still attract your phone's own magnets through it, and will hold less firmly than on bare glass.
Does it scratch? Yes. It has no scratch protection. The cross-hatch hides marks; it does not prevent them.
How much drop does it take? 6 m, which is 19.7 ft.
Is Saffiano a type of leather? No. It is a cross-hatch pressed into calfskin.
Will it muffle the speakers? No. It does not muffle the speakers.
Are the lenses protected? The camera surround is raised, so the lenses do not touch a flat surface. That is lens protection, not screen protection.
Will two of them match? Close, not exactly. Batches vary by 1.39% in color and texture, which is what a batch-made leather object does.
How do I clean it? A dry or barely damp cloth. The treatment is water-resistant, not waterproof, so do not run it under a tap. Our cleaning guide covers the rest, and our case buying guide covers choosing between finishes.
