I've often wondered if leathercraft as a whole has improved or regressed.
There are probably a lot of thoughts on this and you are welcome to give your opinions below. But time and time again I see beautiful examples of fine leather goods made in the early 1900's that blow my mind. Not just the leather and craftsmanship, but the detail in the hardware too.
As a maker I love analysing some of these pieces and breaking down the steps in my mind if I had to recreate it. What I find with many luxury trunks, cases, top frame bags and jewellery boxes is an incredible amount of thought and design that I rarely see in 2020.
This may be a change in consumer tastes, lifestyle and labour costs, but one can't ignore some of the exquisite mastery displayed by many artisanal brands that are mostly long gone.
Some examples I found today:
And probably my favourite by Hermes:
This is the eternal leather (and every other profession I guess) crafter's debate:
Is it worth it to spend decades investing in a skill that the vast majority of people do not want to pay for? Sadly, nowadays, getting into leathercraft is much more a business decision that it is a passion one.
In one of the chat groups I am part of on Instagram, we were having a discussion about crease lines and whether they were essential on a product: 90% of the participants do not make them because it takes time to do them properly and they are of the opinion that as long as the wallet is good from a technical point of view (won't break, good size, not askew (Oh! great tangent, just type in "askew" in google!)) then it is enough. And that in turn comes from their customers not wanting, or not understanding/knowing, that for a little extra they could get more pleasing looking wallets. And everytime we discuss some technical or esthetic thing that could be done for any product, the phrase "why? I am not getting paid for that" always pops up.
Honestly, yesterday I got asked for a quote for a glass slip case, and when I gave my price, I was asked why i charged double what the guy who makes the below item does:
I mean, I rarely bash other makers, or even compare myself to them, but come on! I mean, come the f$%# on! How discouraging is it to a craftsman when he gets compared to a skill level he had 3 or 4 years ago. Just to clarify, I am NOT bashing on the maker, he is still new, he is still learning, we all were there once. But when, after years of dedicating time and effort to be better and better and make better products, you get asked why you are more expensive than a beginner, it is kind of discouraging.
Which brings me to what I wanted to focus on: Customer Education. For me, I think the real trouble with any craft today is that the more there are ways to educate yourself, the less customers are actually educated. They want what they think are good items for cheap, which forces craftsmen to make acceptable items in volume, which does not really give them time to focus on their craft and developping techniques, etc...
But hey, I am sure it is something most of us has thought about before: is investing in this skill worth it? Well, when you are into leathercraft as a business and need to put food on the table today, not in a year or two, it usually is not. When you are into is as a personal passion or hobby, then definetly yes!
Those are some pretty amazing items.... I can't help but hope that we will see this level of craftmanship return on a larger scale.
That Hermes one is pretty nuts, it seems they thought of every single little thing and there is just nothing to improve.
It's almost like a Leathercraft version of the Studley tool chest. If you've heard of the Studley chest then you know how mind-blowing it is.