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House Of May: The Artisan

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Eight-year DB resident Alex May has turned on to leather, creating high-end, one-of-a-kind bags and accessories that oppose fast fashion, beautifully. Elizabeth Kerr checks out Atelier Bouclier

Walk into Alex May’s atelier and you’re instantly confronted with the sights and unmistakable scents of leathercraft. The space – a room in his Discovery Bay flat – is floor-toceiling with tools, scraps, glues, buckles, thread, beeswaxes and leather hides from (mostly) Italy and France. Ar tisanal machines and tools from Japan and South Korea stand across from the main workbench, upon which sits a Moleskin notebook with a deep mustard yellow cover that Alex made. Also on the bench is a belt, navy blue on one side, vivid orange on the other.

On another sur face are some old boarding passes, which Alex is using to help guide his next project: the “per fect” travel wallet. On a high shelf is a birthday gift for his wife, a large olivegreen tote bag with his signature tassels on each side. It’s elegant, cool and, above all, incredibly well made with 100% saddle stitching (meaning it’s completely hand stitched, like ever ything Alex makes). It’s also one-of-a-kind.

To look at him, you wouldn’t take Alex for a designer. By his own admission, he’s more comfor table in button-down shir ts and khakis, and his favourite moccasin-style slip-on shoes than anything formal or flash, but he cer tainly has a gift for accessorising others.

As it stands, Alex calls his high-end, ar tisan leather work a hobby, one that sprang from an urge to do something creative in his spare time. A one-time Chinese and foreign policy student, and a lawyer by trade, he moved to China 25 years ago, just as the countr y was emerging on the world stage, and spent 18 years there in corporate law and advisory.

Alex has been in Hong Kong for the past eight years, having transitioned from law to a Swiss firm here. DB was his first choice for homebase, and there are no plans to leave. “We’ve been out here for a long time,” he says. “It’s where we live. It’s easy to find quiet. We have the water and it’s just peaceful.”

ART FIRST, UTILITY SECOND

Alex’s taste for creativity has remained strong despite the demands of his corporate career. A self-described “tinkerer”, he grew up with a workshop at home, and always made things. YouTube didn’t exist, so as a child he hit the library when he wanted to learn a craft. An autodidact, Alex developed an appreciation for beauty along the way and found he wanted to create “a physical manifestation [of it] that was meaningful”.

“We drafted 70- or 80-page contracts that were beautiful in a legal way, but who’s ever really going to know it?” he says of his law work. Over the years, Alex also tried his hand at painting, but found the endgame unfulfilling.

“I like the idea of combining art and utility: that’s what appeals about my leatherwork,” he says. “For me, it’s art first, utility second. [Put function before form] and you could just use a plastic shopping bag to carry things around.”

The accessorising emerged as a bit of a fluke after a friend left him several leather hides when he relocated to the UK. Alex hit the proverbial books again and started making accessories with a few tools on his dining room table. But a funny thing happened: he got really good at it. His earliest “clients” were his wife (a former banker) and daughter, but friends who saw their bags, belts and other accessories started asking where they bought them.

Alex proceeded to develop a name for his studio: Atelier Bouclier [www.instagram.com/bouclier_atelier]. Everything he makes is to his own designs and patterns, clients get to choose the colour and size.

“I get orders every now and then, not enough for it to be called a business,” he cracks. “The people who order stuff from me [email [email protected]] are those who want something that’s really nice, very high quality, but isn’t ubiquitous. Some people only want status symbols; they want brands. Some people want something that you can’t get anywhere else; something that is both beautiful and truly high quality.”

One-of-a-kind and high-end, Alex’s creations definitely come down on the “pay for quality, once” side of the equation, and that pushback serves his work well. “I make things to outlast the wearer/ user, which may be a bit old fashioned, but this approach is also the counterpoint to fast fashion and ubiquitous mass luxury,” he says. “Sustainability is trending worldwide, and I strongly believe that people should buy less and buy better. Buy the best, buy less of it and enjoy it more.”

TIMELESS AND MADE TO ENDURE

A brief lesson in saddle stitching and edge finishing demonstrates why Alex’s bags won’t come apart in a season. He starts by cutting two lengths of leather, adhering them to each other, trimming the edges to ensure they’re flush, punching guide holes for thread, saddle stitching – one stitch at a time – creating an edge parabola for a smooth line, burnishing and sanding, and polishing with beeswax. He fiddles with the edges a few times, shaving off the uneven sides. Alex can spend up to 80 hours on one item like a bag, and it shows. The navy-blue belt on the workbench is perfect.

Accessories are a broad category, which begs the question: is Alex planning to branch out? Will there be Atelier Bouclier shoes, gloves or luggage to go with glasses cases, belts and handbags any time soon?

“I’ve been playing with the idea of a suitcase, but that’s a really big project,” he says. “In this era of strict baggage allowances, people are drawn to lightweight suitcases – old-school aluminium or leather suitcases can get heavy. If I lived someplace where people drove on weekend trips? Yeah, then I would do something like that.

“Ultimately, design is about finding a solution for a problem,” Alex adds “I find I carry an umbrella a lot in Hong Kong. When it’s not raining, I’d love to be hands-free, so I’m designing something beautiful in leather to do the job.”

Which leads us back to that “perfect” travel wallet: Alex’s idea is for one item for a phone, currencies, SIM cards, credit cards and a passport. “The worst is when you go through security, and you’re trying to find all that stuff in all these pockets and it takes forever. It holds everyone up, or worse you lose things or leave them behind. With this you’d take it out and be done,” he says. “But it’s just an idea.”

Ideas are clearly something Alex has in spades – his mind is full of “designs for various different kinds of bag and other useful items that are both unusual and unique”. So how does he decide what makes it off the drawing board and into the Atelier Bouclier collection? “It’s just a matter of deciding when the design is good enough, beautiful enough to justify making a prototype, and then constructing it in the best quality leather,” he finishes. Easy, right?

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