Photos of our “Arcana” Buckle Tote, made with this gorgeous cognac-colored vegetable-tanned leather in a tumbled grain finish. I like having this tumbled finish option with vegtan because it’s somewhat similar to the grain on a pebbled calfskin, which I also generally like. It’s also a lot more flexible, so we can explore other shapes […]Read Post ›
About 8 months since I made these totes, and they’ve developed a gorgeous golden patina. I couldn’t resist, when I needed some product shots for our website (which we’ve just launched this December), to make use of the rundown corners of the apartment we’re working in and apply some moody vibes to these photos. All shot […]Read Post ›
After a trip to Japan (and hoarding a lot of these delicious cheese cookies), we were left with all these Tokyo Milk Factory boxes that I just couldn’t bring myself to toss out. Their design being like drawers made me think that I could stack them and turn them into something useful to store tools in. […]Read Post ›
I had a bit of leftover 2mm leather at one point, and decided to make a simple man “clutch” for my dad (who doesn’t like bringing a bag for his day-to-day errands and whatnot and has been, for the past few years, using a makeshift woven clutch I’d made for him pre-Italy) This style, although […]Read Post ›
In the course of my mad prototyping, I experimented with different sizes, widths, etc. I then thought–why make it so complicated (having options for N/S, E/W, etc.), when I can just try to make one that has a little bit of everything? Thus this two-faced-tote idea was born. We liked the idea of having 2 faces […]Read Post ›
For her birthday, I made my sister a travel tote that would: a. Fit her ginormous camera with its ginormous lens plus an extra lens that’s also ginormous b. Fit all her necessary travel documents and stuff aside from the camera c. Be presentable when going out to restaurants and the like d. Survive the […]Read Post ›
When my brother requested that I make him a small day bag (I had previously made him a gigantic man bag that really was the size of a weekender bag), it was a great opportunity for me to experiment a bit, because almost everything I had been making up to that point had been women’s […]Read Post ›
After the first set of structured totes, I made another batch in black, with a few edits. These are smaller and narrower than the first two, because even though the larger totes’ size was good for my height, most other people found it to be too large for their petite frames. I also rounded out […]Read Post ›
The first product we began to develop was our version of the perfect structured tote. Vegetable tanned leather, particularly the original Tuscan made ones which is what we sourced for Quiddity, is perfectly suited to the task because of its thickness, toughness, and beautiful qualities like that amazing leather smell, and the gorgeous patina it will naturally […]Read Post ›
Late into my school year, I had the idea to make my mom a cylindrical sunglasses case made of vegetable tanned leather. Since it’s a small leather item, I used a 2mm thick pelt instead of usual 2.8-3mm ones that I use for bags. It was double-layered, too, so it was just structured enough to […]Read Post ›
Used some leftover burgundy vegetable-tanned leather from this project to make a little sling bag with contrast stitching. I didn’t have enough to make a proper “lip” (that small rectangular strip of leather used to help pull the closure of the bag toward the flap in order to close the bag), so it looks just a […]Read Post ›
When I made this bag back in Florence last year, I got these stupid accidental drips of clear edge paint onto the bag, which turned out to be permanent (I still don’t know how to take them out, manually or chemically or otherwise). I had initially tried to remedy it by adding additional spatters to […]Read Post ›
I wanted to make myself a roomier box bag for travel, one that would be big enough for all my stuff but would be presentable at restaurants and the like. I started out constructing this in very much the same way as my original box bag, but when it came time to attach the flap, […]Read Post ›
I Make Leather Handbags 