English Bridle Leather Briefcase
This traditional full-sized bridle leather briefcase is designed for the modern world but is made to a standard that has more or less disappeared. Entirely handmade, fully handstitched, made using the finest English bridle leathers in the world, and above all made with to a standard of quality not to a price. The design draws heavily on our English saddlery background and our love for Edwardian and Victorian leathergoods, and our design objective was to make a case that would last generations.
Made to be big enough for the accoutrements of modern life, like a 15″ laptop, pads of paper and books spread between three gusseted compartments without being too large to impact on portability, this is a great general purpose size for when you need quite a bit of carrying capacity.
Once we’d established the size we wanted we then hit the books ourselves and looked at the very best of the vintage cases we could find from the best makers in the world. We looked at the fittings, the designs and above all the execution of some of the great firms from a time when quality was considered paramount and hand stitching was more or less universal. We gathered many interesting ideas and combined them with our own technique and designs to produce a case we’re proud of and to fulfil our own internal brief of elegance of appearance and workmanship, usefulness and lasting across generations.
These cases are traditionally made from unlined bridle leather to keep down weight so we use oak bark tanned bridle leather from J & F J Baker in London Tan (probably the most traditional colour and configuration available), Oak Brown, Australian Nut, Dark Havanna or Black. Bakers are based in Devon, England and are the best in the world at what they do, we have worked with them for decades so we have no hesitation using their leathers. All of the fittings for the case are sourced from our Walsall (England) based foundry who had made the locks for many of the vintage cases we original looked at for inspiration, and are still producing the finest solid brass locks to this day.
The case is approximately 17″ wide x 12″ high (excluding handle) x 6″ deep externally. There are three internal compartments and two dividers. The case comes with two internal dees for keys etc – an internal set of organiser pockets can be added as an option if desired, with either the standard Equus layout or a full custom set being available. The case comes with a leather shoulder strap with simple shoulder pad, an upgraded pad or a webbing strap are available as options. A number of other additions are available such as newspaper pockets, trolley and umbrella straps, if what you’d like isn’t listed we welcome customisation requests, please just get in touch. We are available to discuss all aspects of the case, be it custom or a standard layout.
