We draw our inspiration from diferent places. Frequenting flea markets and leather shops. Road trips, and Italian leather crafters/artisans/masters. History of leather work was not seen as an art but more as a necessity and a craft and is a large focus of ours. Techniques that date back two, maybe three hundred years still dominate our production. We are attracted to textures, linear designs, metal fixtures and machines. We live by the oldschool form of the art: focused on quality over quantity, using the best materials, made by masters.
Since our products are hand made, we naturally have an obsession with our tools and machinery. We tend to gravitate towards vintage hand tools of our trade because of the overall aesthetics of the tools. Many of the tools we come across are 100+ years old and have been cared for by others who took pride in the craft and the work they produced. Each tool has a story and an inherent nostalgia that you can’t find in a shiny new tool. There are hundreds of tools for each specific treatment so, needless to say, we have a lot of tools.
We focus on sourcing the highest quality materials available. We decided to go with stainless steel in our linked ring collections because of it’s corrosion resistance and hypoallergenic properties. Solid brass is generally our base metal for many leather attachments. As it oxidizes, it is the only metal that looks better old than it does new. We only use the finest quality leather from one of the last tanneries in America. Start to finish…Made in America.
p. 310.452.1616
info@suemidesigns.com
2633 Lincoln Blvd. #506
Santa Monica, CA 90405
Lobby
p. 714.966.9095
2930 Bristol St. #A111
Costa Mesa, CA 92626