Judy Bown loves geeky detail; I love geeky detail. Talking to the bag designer and manufacturer was always going to be a pleasant experience.

Indeed, Judy’s first-ever post on her Designer’s Diary says it all: “Some brands believe that their customers don’t give a fig where or how things are made anymore. I think there are people who want to know the provenence of what they buy. It’s not about being elitist, it’s about a quest for quality.”

Now, it’s very easy to say that you care about quality construction and quality materials. Slightly harder to prove it. Fortunately, Judy spells out every aspect of how her bags are made and the qualities that go into it.

Take the brass hardware that is featured on Bown travel bags. Real brass has a deep colour and warmth that is lacking in the most common alternative, Zamac. This cheap imitation can snap under stress, feels thin and tinny and doesn’t age well. Indeed, you can often spot it by the artificial ‘aged’ look it is given. Judy says Zamac has crept up the fashion ladder – it used to just be seen on cheap high-street bags, now “so-called luxury brands think their customers can’t tell the difference and happily promote it as solid brass”. And she should know. Judy designed the bags at Mulberry for nine years, before working at Coach in New York and then consulting for Tocca, Asprey and Tanner Krolle.

The Bown brass is made by a family firm in Florence that can make small handmade orders to Judy’s designs. It is also individually lacquered to protect it from tarnishing and preserve that warmth – so while it retains the qualities of brass (such as strength with that little bit of give) it doesn’t need much maintenance.

My favourite detail is probably the zips though. These are made by RiRi in Switzerland, the best manufacturer of them in the world, and are all made to length. That means that each tooth matches up exactly down the length of the zip. You’d think that would be easy to do, but the alternative – peeling off single sides of a zip from a big reel – sometimes means the teeth miss ever so slightly. Leading to that annoying jarring.

Each tooth of the zip is individually stamped, polished for 18 hours to remove all rough edges and then washed for a further six hours. If you run your finger down the inside of the zip, you’ll feel no rough edges at all – unlike cheaper, mass-produced zips. Most of the best manufacturers use RiRi zips – I noticed recently that my Albam gilet, which I always thought zipped up in a very satisfying fashion – also has a RiRi zip.

On the Bown linings, I love the anecdote Judy tells about a customer who discovered accidentally that they have a waterproof backing. “He’d driven from Bonn to London and on getting out at the other end, tired and in a hurry, threw the debris from the passenger seat into his bag. This included a styrofoam coffee cup that he thought was empty. When he came to unpack the next day, he was horrified to see the cup on its side, dribbling coffee. Carefully removing his other possessions first, he saw that coffee was sitting in bubbles on the lining. With a bit of kitchen roll he dabbed it up. Absolutely no stains.” The inside is not absolutely waterproof as the seams are not sealed, just sewn. But unless you want to transport water in your bag, that’s unlikely to be a problem.

All this, and we haven’t even talked about the leather yet. Bown bags are made of many different types of leather – including a rather nifty one that is a whole goat on either side – but one thing that unites them is the vegetable tanning. This is pretty commonplace with men’s shoes, but more and more bags are being chrome tanned or use synthetic or corrected leathers. The advantage of vegetable tanning is the natural appearance and the way it ages.

You don’t want a big fault in one side of the bag, but it is nice to see the neck lines down one part of it where the skin has grown. And the unique patina that a natural leather has can never be replicated aesthetically by an artificial process. Chrome-tanned leathers have less subtlety, individuality and do not get better as they age.

Then there’s the inking – how the black stuff is painted down the side of leathers when they are sewn together. You can tell it’s done by hand because there is no line up the middle of the join (makes it stronger too). But I think we’ve had enough geeky detail for now, even for me.

I’ve been using my Overnight Cabin Bag in dark tan for about a month now. And I get a palpable pleasure from using it – whether it is the buttery feel of the leather or the knowledge of its craft that comes from the details above. Few accessories (non-clothes) I have ever bought give me that same sense of satisfaction.

If you want more, I highly recommend the Designer’s Diary on the Bown website. I read it all, backwards, (much in the way I hope people trawl through the archives of this site). Thanks to Judy’s descriptions of leather working I now really want to take one of the courses run by Val Michael and Neil McGregor at their workshop in Tetbury. So much better to do it than just talk about it.

While most blog-favoured companies get their start in the noughties, there are a few who started up just before the internet became the primary source for information. One such company is Jack Spade, who has been going since 1996.

Created by husband/wife team of Andy and Kate Spade, the line originally began as an offshoot to his wife’s namesake women’s accessories collection. Kate Spade was first made in the couple’s attic and the bags aimed to be ‘neither overly precious or boring basics’. That line eventually grew to the point where they began making bags for hardware stores, which in turn led to the men’s collection.

When asked in US Esquire about why he called his range Jack Spade instead of the more obvious namesake choice, he said, “There were two guys I really admired–Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, and Jack Kerouac. I thought its art and commerce. It’s straightforward, unpretentious. So we named the company Jack Spade. Jack is like a drop of mercury. You can never put your finger on it; you can never figure it out.”

Fabric wise, the company uses cowhide, vegetable tanned and full grain for their leather collections, whilst using canvas and nylon for their messenger bags. The focus is on day bags, whether it be backpacks, totes, messenger or small holdalls, although they do make wallets and key rings. The bags are all US made and they’ve recently branched out into clothing for SS10 season, making clothes with Cuan Hanly. Hanly had previously worked with Paul Smith for 10 years in addition to running a Dublin-based tailoring business, so he was deemed the perfect choice for the job of bringing clothing that sat comfortably alongside the accessories.

When asked about how his clothes, Spade replied, “I like my clothing with character. Things that have been lived in–imperfect and with stories. I don’t mind if it’s too small. I don’t mind if it’s too big. One thing I hate, though, is the perfect length. I have no patience for a flawless break in the pant.”

While the term ‘manbag’ is still one that lingers, it’d be hard to deny that the stigma regarding men carrying bags has all but disappeared. One company to benefit from the loss of this stigma is UK based accessories experts, Bill Amberg.

Launching in 1984, Bill Amberg started out with a focus on women’s leather accessories, before including luggage and men’s day bags to the collection. They’ve since expanded into interior design and design consultancy, working with the likes of Dunhill, Motorola, Tate and Globe Trotter. Aside from leather bags, wallets and luggage, they’ve also moved into leather flooring. “Leather is a perfect flooring material”, Bill explains, “[It’s] Warm, dust-free [and has] wonderful acoustic properties”.

While leather flooring won’t be to everyone’s tastes, his bags are a simpler affair. There are only two collections in total, the modern traveller collection and the selvage casual collection. Made in a Turkish factory, the main material used is calfskin leather, although nylon, canvas and herringbone wool all make an appearance. Like Nigel Cabourn and Margaret Howell, his bags are very popular in Japan, where they retail at the likes of Beams and Tomorrowland.

Style wise, he’s aims to go for the middle ground between function and fashion, “My personal preference has always been for the function-meets-beauty side of things,” he states. “I love a really cool bag that people use and wear in and it becomes something that you use frequently rather than one of a thousand in your wardrobe. Mine are less self conscious bags that you can wear – not a bag that wears you”.

For a long time, the luxury accessories market has been the easiest for high end companies to exploit. But with customers now demanding to know how their products are made and why they cost, there’s now space in the market for a company like Want Les Essentiels de la Vie to focus on high quality accessories.

Founded in 2006, Want Les Essentiels is a Canadian company founded by two twin brothers, Dexter and Byron Peart. Prior to starting Want Les, Dexter worked for 8 years as Vice President of Sixty Canada, whilst Byron worked as Marketing Director of Diesel Canada. “WANT Les Essentiels de la Vie was conceived out of a ‘want’ for premium quality leather goods”, Byron states.

They use Norwegian leather for their entire leather collection, “[it’s] slightly heavier than most leathers [and has] a beautiful grain that is much tougher and long lasting”. The leather travel and computer bags are handmade in a factory in northern Italy, whilst the small leather goods are made in China’s Guanzhou region. They’ve also introduced a more accessible organic cotton line, which uses cotton sourced from a renowned Turkish cotton farm.

The main difference between Want Les Essentiels and a comparable accessories line is the quality of the leather used throughout the collection. “Many brands often use stamped leather, especially in small leather goods. This technique masks the imperfections of the leather by the stamping, allowing many companies to use lower quality grade leather,” the Pearts states. “For Want Les Essentiels de la Vie products, we believe in respecting our customers’ discerning tastes, and use only the same first quality leather through the entire collection”.

“We feel that it’s important to hark back to the days of old, where you give more to the consumer than they expect. We have, unfortunately, become too complacent about demanding more from our purchases. But from cars, to electronics, to fashion and accessories, consumers are beginning to flex their purchasing power - and ultimately that is a good thing for all of us.”

‘Under the radar’ is an overused phrase in fashion, but there is the odd occasion when it’s the perfect description of a company.

That’s the case with Ally Capellino, a label which began back in the 1980’s as a fashion label when Alison Lloyd began the company with her former creative partner and husband Jono Platt. The label re-launched in 2000 as an accessories-only line she took on the name Ally Capellino (Capellino means ‘little hat’ in Italian).

Capellino’s signature material for her bags is waxed cotton, a material known for its graceful aging and one usually reserved for coats. Other materials used are nylon, canvas, leather and for the spring collections, washed cotton.

They use two different types of leather, with one version being an unlined, oiled leather and another being a washed leather. The leather pieces are made in London, whilst the canvas bags are made in China. Capellino states that she “like(s) to use naturally finished leathers, which age and relax with use. Longevity is a natural bonus of our bags.”

While they do have seasonal collections, the main updates come in the form of material changes, such as updating a certain bag to a lighter material for a spring collection. She considers the bags to be “practical, tactile, unstructured, casual, wearable and classic”, also nothing that as an accessories designer “I feel one step removed (from fashion): you’re selling a product rather than a look and people have to add something of themselves.”

There’s no shortage of luxury bags labels out there, but most are based on mystique rather than quality. Mismo look to break that mould with the best quality materials, classic shapes and a simple design that’ll remain in fashion for years rather than seasons.

Founded in 2006, Adam Alexander Bach and his co-founder had actually spent the three years prior travelling the world, sourcing the best materials. They eventually settled on vegetable tanned full grain leather from Turkey and custom developed canvas from one of the oldest canvas manufacturers in Italy. Bach notes that, “We make no compromises in our choices. If we have to pay 10 times the price for a specially developed zipper that lasts 100 years instead of a standard one that lasts 30, that is what we do. The focus is on giving the bags a timelessness rather than pandering to current fashion demands - both in terms of design and quality. We are obsessed with durable, natural looking materials that will enhance its beauty over time, and sourcing these exact right materials is one of the processes we enjoy the most.”

This focus on timelessness is why they don’t add new bag shapes every season – instead focusing on adding new colour ways or developing a certain bag in a new material. “Any new style we create originates from a mix between a strategic decision on what we feel is missing in the collection as well as on the market,” Adam says. “It also comes from the creative desire to innovate vintage styles and constructions into updated classics”.

The price point is a bone of contention in the blog world, but in comparison to other luxury brands, it’s a fair one. An important point Adam makes is that “we’re not on a mission to build a brand so desirable that the correlation between actual costs and retail price is blown out of proportion”.

“One good thing about this financial crisis is that the average consumer has suddenly started to pay attention to what they’re buying. Gone is the over-consuming, 100% brand driven, unimportant buys, and what is left is a new focus on durability, longevity and the use of sustainable materials”.