Tag / leather

by brandsa2018

From butcher shop to leather craft studio

Raw red brick walls and the scent of leather surround talented bag creator Sasha Carroll in her old butcher shop studio at Mile End in Adelaide’s inner western suburbs.

“The locals say this was once a really popular continental butcher, it was one of the first in Adelaide making yiros and chorizo sausage,” Sasha says from the studio on a street lined with old workers’ cottages.

Now its interior has beautiful hand crafted leather handbags hanging from the original butcher hooks with sewing machines and stacks of leather scattered around the space below.

Sasha has about 15 different styles of carefully designed and handmade classic satchels, tote bags and wallets that she sells in rich colours like whiskey and tan through her Butcher Byrd business.

It’s a business attracting a growing number of fans including well-known Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist Dan Sultan who recently discovered Sasha’s work via Instagram and bought four bags.

Small hip satchel.

“It’s about simplicity, I just like really classic designs so they are mostly about the leather, there’s a place for the sparkly, crazy stuff, but I just like to create a lifetime bag, a bag you will have forever, and a bag that improves with age,” Sasha says.

It was about five years ago that Sasha started Butcher Byrd after having first studied bespoke custom shoemaking at the former Marleston TAFE and then worked together with well-known JamFactory shoe and leather maker Rose-Anne Russell.

She was still busy making shoes when her true making passion gradually emerged.

“It was when I realised that the satchel that I had designed and made for my husband and the tote that I had designed and made for my mother were still going strong after 10 years of everyday use,” she says.

“They were battered, soft and worn, better with age, and would get numerous comments from strangers and friends. My mum had often joked that she could have sold hers many times over.”

At the time, Sasha and Neil had moved into a Mile End house next door to her sister’s former butcher shop home – and, when her sister moved interstate in 2014, a new inspiration emerged for the building’s growing history.

Sasha Carroll in the old butcher shop which has been transformed into her leather bags and accessories studio.

“Suddenly, I was next door to this space and I said let’s turn it into a workspace as I was just getting into making bags,” Sasha says.

“The name Butcher Byrd made sense for the business, it was about the woman working in the butcher shop and working with leather, it was like it was meant to be.”

There’s been growing success for Sasha since she sold her earliest bags at One Small Room in Queen Street and later won a place at the Bowerbird market.

Now the bags are also stocked at Brick and Mortar Creative in Norwood, a café and store featuring more than 80 local, independent artists, along with Field Trip at Balhannah in the Adelaide Hills where Mim Clarkson and Linda Marek also sell their own clothing, jewellery and homewares.

Most of her sales are made through Etsy with plans underway to revamp the website next year and to possibly redefine the product range with some core designs and releasing two seasonal ranges each year.

Sasha says there’s a strong support network among designers in South Australia with the Bowerbird market particularly drawing the local community together to forge bonds.

Each bag is designed and crafted on site.

It was through the market that she also built solid relationships with Adelaide furniture designer, maker and I Choose SA ambassador Robin Wood and the team behind Frock Me Out who are “now going gangbusters”.

And then there’s Bulb Lighting that share her studio space for their growing events business.

Sasha says working from the Mile End studio has created an important life balance while her children Frankie, 6, and Bobby, 2, are younger, and it has also given her the opportunity to constantly reassess the direction of the business.

She plans to expand during the next few years and to employ staff to help with the making as she finds it increasingly difficult to meet demand from more stores wanting to stock her products.

Sasha is also considering using more of the traditional vegetable tanned leather, made using an age-old process that can take two to three months, with all her leather sourced through local retailer D.S. Horne.

“There’s something about sitting down with a piece of leather and a pattern and drawing it up, piecing it together, putting the handles on and then putting it up on the butcher hook that works for me,” Sasha adds.

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Slowing it down in the world of craft

In an industry consumed with fast fashion and big brands, Adelaide shoemaker Matea Gluscevic is proving that slow and sustainable is best when it comes to the world of custom-made creations.

“I can’t really participate in fast fashion or trends because by the time a trend comes and goes, I’m only at the research, development and pattern making stages,” says Matea from her workshop at creative hub The Mill on Angas Street, Adelaide.

“My satisfaction comes from making something that I know will last a long time. I want somebody to be able to have my shoes for ages.”

The 30-year-old designer and maker launched her own shoe brand just over a year ago, with the first order placed by a woman in Portland, Oregon, in the US who had spotted Matea’s shoes on Instagram.

Matea’s workspace at The Mill. Photo by Christopher Arblaster.

Since then Matea’s brand has transitioned through a few name changes and different style directions, from minimalistic and basic block coloured sandals to more futuristic and colourful designs.

Her label underwent a rebrand recently to become Matea Gluscevic Handmade, – in response to Matea’s desire to adopt to a more genuine and sincere style suited to her own personal taste.

The shoes are made to order, taking about three weeks to craft from sustainably sourced materials including wild kangaroo leather, cork and recycled rubber.

The vegetable tanned kangaroo leather is considered more environmentally friendly than typical chrome tanned bovine leather and is sourced from South Australian kangaroo leather tannery Vacel Leather in Adelaide’s north.

“Veg tan leather is made using bark tannins, so it’s better for the environment … I would rather not have too much of a guilty conscience in terms of what I’m doing,” Matea says.

“Even the rubber I use is made from 20% recycled content.”

These custom fit house slippers feature green holographic vinyl, yellow kangaroo leather and a medium density orthopaedic insole.

Matea has been a resident at The Mill for three years, with the first two years of her tenure spent as a sculptor and installation artist.

She brought with her qualifications in shoemaking as well as a Bachelor of Visual Art specialising in sculpture and installation from the University of Adelaide. She even studied a year of dental technology to learn more practical skills with plastering and mould making.

Matea admits that life as an artist can be a tough gig compared to a regular nine-to-five job, and so she works on weekends as a bartender and is also an event manager for a dance party held at an Adelaide nightspot roughly once a month.

Matea’s shoes are made to order and take about three weeks to create. Photo by Michael Papez.

“In terms of being a maker I prefer it here in Adelaide, the environment is better and it feels like a more supportive scene,” she says.

While the life of a craftsperson is usually seen as one spent tucked away in a one-person studio, Matea’s everyday surroundings are quite the opposite.

Although she occupies her own dedicated workspace at The Mill, she’s surrounded by a number of like-minded creators, artists, makers, writers and designers – some emerging, others established.

There’s JamFactory trained jeweller Tanis Blines who shares a studio with her husband John Blines, an artist whose works are entrenched in medical and behavioural science.

Other associate artists include Lisa Penny of Hey Reflect’o, furniture designer Robyn Wood, ceramicist Kate O’Callaghan and tattoo studio XO L’Avant.

Furniture by Peter Fong.

Illustrator and furniture designer Peter Fong has been at The Mill since its establishment in 2013.

Graduating with a visual communications degree at the UniSA, Peter went on to become a freelance illustrator using traditional tools of nibs and ink.

Peter’s portfolio includes wine labels and magazine illustrations and says Adelaide’s close-knit community means he’s rarely had to promote his brand to find work.

He recently pushed the pen to the side to pursue his love for woodwork and furniture design and is preparing to launch his first collection of custom furniture including tables and stools in the near future.

“I mainly use hand tools and try not to use many screws or nails, it’s all joinery,” Peter says.

“I just love building things that last. It makes me happy seeing something down the road and saying ‘yep, it’s still there’.”

A sideboard by Peter Fong.

Industry in focus: Craft industries

Throughout the months of November and December, the state’s craft industries will be celebrated as part of I Choose SA.

South Australian craftspeople make up some of our most creative thinkers and makers of sustainable and innovative goods. Read more craft stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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Shop South Australia is home to a unique collection of over 300 South Australian gifts and goods from more than 70 local makers and producers. Choose local and Shop South Australia.

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