About

I'm Candy, and I make leather bags and accessories from a small workshop in Kent.

I've spent years working in leather manufacturing. Proper manufacturing, with industrial machines and the kind of process knowledge that only comes from making a lot of things and learning what works and what doesn't. That background is in everything I make. I know when the stitching is right and the edges are finished properly, and I'm not satisfied until they are.

The materials

Almost everything I make starts with leather that already exists: surplus stock, deadstock, offcuts, material left over from larger production runs that would otherwise go nowhere. I work this way partly because I care about what we put into the world, and partly because I find the constraint genuinely interesting. The material shapes the design in ways that wouldn't happen otherwise. A piece of unexpected textured leather becomes a lining; an unusual colour from a job lot ends up being the thing people mention first when they pick up the bag.

When I do use new leather, it's because the design asks for it and nothing else will do. I won't compromise the work for the principle, but the principle matters.

Because I work with finite materials, every piece is limited in the most straightforward sense: when the leather is gone, that colourway is gone. Sometimes I make three of something. Sometimes just one.

The design

I want to make things that are contemporary and a bit unexpected: a lining in a colour you didn't see coming, a slightly asymmetric shape, a detail that makes you look twice. I'm not interested in things that blend in. At the same time, everything has to work properly. Function is part of the design, not an afterthought. A piece only earns its keep if it does its job well for years.

Why it matters

I'm conscious of adding more things to a world already full of them, so if I'm going to make something it has to be worth making: worth the material, worth the time, worth keeping. I'd rather you bought one bag and kept it for ten years than bought three and replaced them all. That's what Tilt//Shift is about: one workshop, one maker, things built to last.

If you want to know more about a piece, the leather it's made from, or whether I can make something slightly differently, just get in touch. I'm always happy to talk about the work.