This is a fun one! There are things I need that don’t exist, so I learned to work with leather and made them myself. Like an Apple keyboard sleeve, a one-piece sunglasses case, a narutomaki Airtag key ring.
My friend, Harshita, saw these and texted me to ask about something custom-made for her.
She sent me hundreds of references of quirky little charms she wanted to hang off her big designer bag and have easy access to Airpods, a hand sanitizer and a lip balm. Quirky being the operating principle.
I’d never designed a custom leather thing for someone else before. I started out a bit lost and sketched a few ideas that branched off in all sorts of directions.
Eventually, it hit me—years ago, when Harshita lived in Pune, we’d have breakfast together on the way to work a few times a week. Trying new places was our thing; that’s when we actually got to know each other better. I tried some ideas based around a breakfast/food theme, and it finally started to click.
The scale of the bags made them tricky to design. My sketches really helped me figure out all the small parts and how they could work. I turned them into a booklet for Harshita to keep as a souvenir. Plus it was a little surprise in the box.
I thought it would also be cool to see all the sketches at once, along with their corresponding leather swatches. So I brought out my knife and glue, and bound them into an accordion.
This was a really quick project that I did in my down time, but it turned out to be one of my favourites. And I had a ton of fun trying something new! 😁
