We made our first Men's Karabiner bag in 2005 from black army boot leather see below. They proved to be a hit and we have been developing them ever since.
The Leather
We
tried many colours and weights before chancing upon a fantastic
rustic, oiled American leather called “Crazy Horse”. The bags made from this leather were a real hit. So we
commissioned a Northamptonshire tannery to produce a run of leather for us. This is an amazing process. Like many parts of the British Leather Industry you visit factories which have worked with leather for decades (or centuries).
The crazy horse leather is a lovely thick, full-grain, waxy leather sourced
from European cattle. Reared slowly the leather has (in the technical language) a
competent tight grain without branding marks.
The Cutting
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| 'Clicking' to cut the leather |
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| Positioning the clicker press knife |
The bag components; front, back, strap, gusset, flap etc are cut using a Clicker Press. This is basically a beefed up version of a
pastry cutter powered by a hydraulic press.
Then the sewing starts.....
We use a strong German industrial sewing machine
capable of maintaining an equal stitch length through thick leather (up to
1cm). The needle is suitably big and the
thread is a really strong nylon bonded heavy weight variety made for leather
work.
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| Our Industrial Leather Machine - a monster |
We piece together the components, thread up the strap and sew it up. The bags also have a little fabric pocket at the back for valuables which we sew in at this stage.
The key design feature which sets the bags apart is the karabiner closure, justaposing a very traditional style and construction of bag with something urban, raw and contemporary. They are really strong and we are told have a tendency to be confiscated by customs.
A new feature for 2016 and our ability to make bespoke amendments
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| A personalised message engraved into the bag flap |
We can now engrave a message on the inside of the flap or your contact details if you have a tendency to leave the bag behind. As with most of our products as the bags are made in house if you are desperate to have an additional feature get in touch we can normally oblige.
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| A bespoke buckle bag with an extra large gusset |
We made our first Men's Karabiner bag in 2005 from black army boot leather see below. They proved to be a hit and we have been developing them ever since. 
