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Every maker has one piece that shows what they can do. The Signature is ours.
A signature piece isn’t necessarily the biggest or the most expensive. It’s the one where every decision is the one you’d make if nothing were constrained: the best of the hide, the detail done properly, the proportions resolved rather than compromised.
That makes it the bag to look at if you want to understand what the rest of the collection is built on.
Full grain, which means the surface of the hide is intact rather than sanded back and refinished. That’s the difference between leather that ages into something better and leather that wears out.
On a piece carried regularly, full grain develops a patina across the whole surface rather than just at the handled points, and that’s what makes an older bag look valuable rather than tired. Our guides to why full grain leather is worth the investment and how leather ages cover it.
The bag is cut, assembled and finished by hand. That matters in the places you don’t immediately look: how the edges are finished, how the stress points are reinforced, how the stitching runs where two pieces meet at an angle.
Our guide to the making of a handmade leather bag goes through the process, and from workshop to wardrobe shows the workshop.
If you’re buying one bag to keep, this is the argument:
Cost per wear. A bag carried for ten years costs very little per use. One replaced every eighteen months doesn’t. Our guide to what a handmade leather handbag should cost sets out the maths.
It improves. Almost nothing else you buy does.
It doesn’t date. The shape isn’t chasing a season.
It can be repaired. A well-made bag with solid fittings can be put right rather than replaced. Our guide to leather bag hardware covers why the fittings decide that.
See also choosing your first investment leather bag.
It takes a scarf well, and a full scarf rather than a twilly suits the scale. Our guide to pairing bags and scarves covers which prints work against which leathers.
Otherwise it needs very little. A piece like this looks best against plain clothes, letting the leather be the thing you notice.
Condition it occasionally, store it loosely stuffed in a dust bag away from light, and use it. Leather kept in a box doesn’t improve; it just waits. See our bag care page and our guide to storing your leather bags properly.
See the Signature bag and the rest of our handbags. If you’d like something made to your own specification, see bespoke leather handbags.
Yes, and using it is how it develops its patina. It isn’t a piece to keep for best.
Full grain leather improves with use. Cared for, it should look better than it did new.
A well-made bag with solid fittings can be put right rather than replaced, which is a large part of the argument for buying well once.
