Uptown Common - Hand Sewn (Literally!)

A custom La Borsetta in Olive with dual-colored stitching.

Wrapping up leather week and decided to shamelessly feature ourselves! Uptown Common has been doing leather goods since early in 2020, starting with small items with goals to eventually begin making larger bags. While it took some time, clutches were added in 2023 and larger bags started making their appearance in 2024.

The journey of Uptown Common has been filled with equal parts of joy and nervous anticipation, something I’m sure almost all of our featured makers could relate to. However, I have learned a ton about leather goods, materials, construction techniques, marketing, sales, and taxes.

This was a custom ordered Trapezio made from shell cordovan leather sourced from an Italian tannery.

Learning about the available materials has been the most enjoyable part of leather work for me. When I first began working with leather, I had owned a higher end bag for a short while before learning more about the materials that the manufacturer chose to use. To make a long story short, the materials and construction techniques were chosen to maximize profit and not end user satisfaction. Sound familiar?

At Uptown Common, we use exclusively vegetable-tanned leather unless something different is requested for a specific item. Everything is hand-sewn using a traditional saddle stitch technique and solid brass hardware is used whenever it is available. These choices were all made consciously due to longevity of the individual materials, the way that the materials wear over time, and the environmental impact of the manufacturing methods to create everything.

While I could write for pages about leather and our business, I will instead place a link to our website below. Visit us there and give our business page a follow if you haven’t yet.

The Cresta in garnet Horween Shell Cordovan.