RL: Please tell us about yourself?
MB: My name is Matt, I’m from South Wales and I’m passionate about leather working.
RL: Please tell us about your work?
MB: I’ve been working with leather for around 4 years, the bulk of my work is small leather goods like belts, watch straps and wallets. Most of the leather I use is Italian vegetable tanned, I try to keep it as true to ‘hand crafted’ as possible, everything from the cutting to the stitching is done by hand. I take a lot of inspiration from old larger style ‘biker’ wallets, as well as architecture. I’m always trying to combine different shapes and curves to create something unique, although it doesn’t always work out or make it onto the website!
RL: What do you like about laser cutting and the material/s you used?
MB: Acrylic templates literally changed the game for me, for years I was cutting and measuring from scratch every time, then I moved onto to paper templates which I didn’t like as they don’t last long and I hated wasting so much paper, plus they’re difficult to trace around, having acrylic templates means I can get perfect cuts, angles and measurements every time with minimal effort.
RL: What made you choose RazorLAB?
MB: I heard about Razorlab through some other leather crafters within the UK, I’d previously tried another service from a different supplier but the products were a bit rough, Razorlab took my designs and the turnaround time was amazing, all the templates I’ve received have been accurate down to the millimetre which is vital for making sure my products end up clean and precise.
RL: Where can we see your work?
MB: You can see my design process at my blog. My website is fortedleather.com, I’m on Instagram, Etsy and YouTube.