The years of cutting and stitching are taking their toll on leather craftsman Hanspeter Winklmayr.

Wearing a white sleeveless coat with pencils in his chest pocket, the gray-bearded, pony-tailed Winklmayr complains about his tennis elbow in an interview with Forbes. CNBCAfrica picked up the story from Forbes and AFKInsider picked it up from CNBCAfrica.

Winklmayr co-owns the company Via La Moda, located in a three-story red brick building flanked by used car dealers in the grimy industrial world of Roodepoort, South Africa.

He makes his living fashioning leather accessories — wallets, handbags and belts — from ostrich and Nile crocodile skins.

When Forbes catches up with Winklmayr, he has just emerged from the kitchen of Via La Moda, where he took a tea break with his 48 staff. He retreats to his air-conditioned office full of sketches, scissors and leather cut-offs.

It’s been a long day. At 5 a.m. on weekdays, Winklmayr goes for a bike ride. Then he drives five kilometers to start the day on his computer, looking for inspiration and exploring the latest patterns from Italian and French designers.

He spent his childhood in a family leather factory in Vienna learning from his father and grandfather how to be a leather craftsman.

Winklmayr’s family forebear, Johann Kammerer, was born in 1670 in Vienna. Kammerer made leather saddles from home. Almost 350 years later, leather craft still runs in the family.

“Before I could read and write, I knew what the hammer, scissors and knife were,” Winklmayr said, according to CNBCAfrica.

Winklmayr arrived in South Africa with a master’s degree in leather manufacturing, unable to speak a word of English.

“When everyone was going to Paris, London or San Francisco, I said ‘I am going to South Africa,'” he said. “I really had no idea what I was putting myself into. I had a very strong patriarchal father, so I wanted to show him I could manage on my own.”

Winklmayr landed his first job in South Africa in 1981 at age 21 as designer and manufacturing manager at Dolphin Leather Crafts. He worked there eight years training staff.

In 1989, Winklmayr quit Dolphin Leather and partnered with Walter Hauser, a fellow Austrian furniture maker, in Roodepoort.

In 2014, Winklmayr formed a collaboration with entrepreneur Stuart Brand, a hotelier-turned-crocodile-farmer from Zimbabwe.

Brand had been shipping his tanned leather crocodile skins to the U.S., Italy and France. Now he wanted Winklmayr to help him create luxury leather goods under the brand Zambezi Grace.

“We sold most of our processed crocodile skin in the boot market in Texas,” Brand said. “But we wanted to go all the way from egg to final product on our own. We wanted to come closer to the consumer. We needed to do everything by ourselves. That’s why we created our luxury brand, Zambezi Grace.

“A lot of Africans will leave Africa to buy European brands because they think it has to be good if it’s European,” Brand said. “That’s why we needed to create a strong African brand, created by Africans … We want a strong presence in Africa.”

Brand’s father, Chippy Brand, was also an entrepreneur, the first farmer in South Africa to grow grass for sale in Westonaria, 45 kilometers from Johannesburg. Chippy founded Grace Hotels including Mount Grace west of Johannesburg; the Rosebank Grace and the Cape Grace at the Waterfront in Cape Town — winner of Best Small Luxury Hotel In The World in 1999.

When Grace Hotels was sold, Brand invested in Zambezi Grace which has grown into a $25-million company.

His farm in Binga District of Northern Zimbabwe has its own tannery factory and a crocodile population of 40,000.

“We added more and more capacity to the farm since we bought it,” Brand said. “In 2013, we built a tannery to process the animal leather skin. This has created more work for the local people.”

“There are very few recognizable African luxury brands,” Brand said. “With the Cape Grace hotel business we managed to do it and I am transferring the experience to Zambezi Grace.”

Brand credits his staff of 400 for a 100-percent hatching rate for crocodile eggs compared to less than 70 percent in the wild.

How does he justify killing crocodiles for their skins?

“I made a pact with the crocodiles that I won’t eat them if they do not eat me,” Brand said. “That’s why I don’t eat crocodile meat.”