Advantages in the dressing of leather, especially of split leather, with a synthetic rubber latex are obtained if in the leather dressing, the rubber latex is reacted with from 0.5 to 50% by weight, based on solid rubber, of one or more oxides and/or hydroxides of one or more bivalent metals and the leather is treated with a non-polymerized rubber latex which is produced in a one-stage process up to a monomer conversion of from 70 to 95% by weight, by emulsion polymerization of:(A) from 1 to 10 parts by weight of one or more .alpha.,.beta.-monoethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acids; and(B) from 90 to 99 parts by weight of a mixture of(a) from 10 to 90 parts by weight of butadiene and(b) from 10 to 90 parts by weight of styrene and/or acrylonitrile, wherein the quantity of acrylonitrile in the mixture amounts to a maximum of 50 parts by weight.