The Secret Ingredients of a Tusting Bag

The richness of the newly made-up bag colours brought to mind sugarpaste icings and afternoon teas, two things that make us tick. With this in mind and to celebrate our Summer palette refresh, we commissioned incredibly talented master cake maker Emma Jayne, of Emma Jayne Cake Design to replicate each bag in edible form. The results of this Tusting bake off were absolutely deceptive, showing that our bags really do look good enough to eat!

The key ingredients for our new range of Holly and Eliza bags (and indeed our “Little Things” accessories) is a fully vegetable-tanned bridle leather. This has been given a tumbled grain finish. The tumbling process not only gives good texture and softens the bags, it gives them a “well loved” feel too, meaning that they look fresh without looking too new.

Once our colourways and type of leather were established, responsibility then lay with our managing director, Alistair Tusting whose job it was to source and commission the perfect hide, before it arrived in to our Lavendon workshop, for inspection under the expert eyes of our leather specialist, Terry.

“Eight key steps go into the creation of every Tusting piece.”

There are no shortcuts in any of the bags, luggage or small pieces that we produce at Tusting. Careful thought, planning and construction goes into each one. From design through to pattern making, cutting-out through to skiving and splitting (yes, we have a Chief Skiver…if only he had a business card!) sewing through to the final stages of finishing and quality control, each stage of production is carried out by a dedicated expert, trained in the Tusting methodology. We don’t sit on our laurels either, if our customers or staff feedback on how or where something can be improved, we work to implement any changes and test them to the max before signing them off.