About

Home for me is the beautiful little town of St. Thomas, Ontario, where I live with my husband and our four girls.

Life is busy, as you can imagine, with a growing family and a growing business. Our storefront studio is in a heritage building downtown, and I’ve become passionate about the value of in-person, experiential retail and the work of bringing our downtown core back to life.

These old buildings tell the story of where we came from. They are precious pieces of our roots, and I believe we need to keep making space for them in our daily lives. They bring beauty, character and richness to a community.

Making things with my hands has always been part of my life. My mom sewed, my dad loved woodworking, and I had plenty of opportunity to learn alongside them. Behind our home, I now have a small woodworking shop where I design and build original furniture pieces for the store.

As a young mom, I started making and selling decor pillows and fabric bags at shows and markets—often with a daughter or two in tow. Over the years, I exhibited at the One of a Kind Show and Interior Design Show and sold through shops including the AGO and Distill.

Then I discovered leather.

After making bags from fabric for a couple of years, I fell in love with the richness and longevity of leather. I still remember looking at my first leather bag after a year of daily use and realizing it looked almost exactly as it had when I made it.

Leather felt like the right material for the kind of things I wanted to make—beautiful, useful objects that could become part of someone's life and last for years. Solid brass hardware was a natural companion, and slowly I began developing a collection of bag designs.

The Aviatrix collection was the first story to emerge, inspired by the remarkable women who became pilots during the Second World War. From there came other collections, each with its own story, symbols and inspiration.

And so, what began with a sewing machine, a young family and a few market tables has grown into the little studio you see today.

I’m still happiest when I’m making something with my hands, surrounded by good materials, old buildings, beautiful things—and, occasionally, one of my daughters wandering through the studio.

Thank you for being here. I’m so glad you found your way to us!

 – Suzanne