We’ve had the pleasure of designing handmade leather bags for over 13 years. A lot of time and effort goes in to the whole process of bag making from finding inspiration, to creating a functional, practical, and stylish bag that will last for years to come. Furthermore, the team look at fashion trends and work with fashion experts to validate these trends. We also work with customers to find out what design they would like to see next.
We have come a long way since Carl found his first leather satchel bag at a market during his travels to India. Impressed with the durable and vintage looking leather, he wanted to create a fashionable version. Over 13 years later, we have expanded our collection massively to give you a bag for every occasion.
The Design Process
The first stage of creating our handmade leather bags is the design process. As a team, we work out every small detail of our designs from metal hardware to material. In addition, our talented bag makers in India know exactly what we are looking for. Our makers regularly send us samples of material so we know exactly what’s available to us.
The Scaramanga designing team is quite small and managed by Carl. When we know we want to introduce a new collection, we look at the bags we already have and discuss aspects that we can improve. Throughout the whole process, we ensure we are true to who we are as a brand and ensure all designs reflect our core values.
Sampling Leather Bags
When we have finally completed our design, we send this to our makers top sample expert, Laltu who will bring the handmade leather bags design to life. Laltu has been working with leather for over 30 years. He started as an apprentice leather bag maker when he was 16 and progressed to team leader. He has worked on every bag and accessory we have ever made.
We meet up with Laltu every year in Calcutta to discuss all of our designs for the year ahead. This meeting with Laltu is critical to the sample meeting our design brief. There’s always a lot of questions and design briefs to go through with him and we are always happy with Laltu’s samples. The sampling can be a long process that requires a lot of redesigning and it’s always expected that several samples will be made to achieve the final design. We have been working with our makers for 9 years and we have never looked back.
Making our Handmade Leather Bags
We use a semi-vegetable buffalo leather in the majority of our handmade leather bags due to the durable leather and vintage style. This leather is also infused with natural oils, waxes and dyes which means we use far fewer harmful chemicals. It’s important to us to be a sustainable and ethical business that has less harmful effects on the planet, and this starts with our products.
The tanned material is a tough-wearing leather that features a unique ring pattern. Our bags are made from parts and we use patterned templates. Leather cutters hand-cut parts and are trimmed more accurately by team members using the templates.
Our handmade leather bag makers use a skiving machine to reduce the thickness of certain parts of the bag. This is usually done to leather pieces that will overlap. In addition, once they are sewn together, they have an even thickness. Each set of similarly sized bags are made by a team of four to five people. The team is managed by a team leader and will also have junior and senior members varying in skill level and experience. They make the entire bag from leather pieces to finished article.
Our leather bag makers will use a variety of traditional hand tools. They also make their own tools to fit the purpose of the tools to their needs. Once the pieces are cut exactly, grey cotton lining and zips are then temporarily positioned in place with tape. Other team members make small parts such as straps and attach metal hardware such as rings and buckles.
Senior team members and machinists will hand build the body of each leather bag and add the piping. They will also encourage other team members through this process to learn from the best. Several styles of our bags are sewn inside out to ensure the bag is of the highest standard. The main body of both our bags are double and triple stitched for extra durability and use a nylon thread that will last for years to come.
Once the handmade leather bags collection is completed, the team in India send them over to Scaramanga headquarters to double check everything and ensure they are ready for our lovely customers to enjoy. If you would like to find out more about how our leather bags are made, feel free to
contact us now.
