All of the clothing I make is of my own tanned hides, hand-cut and hand-stitched to measure. Mostly, this is work and learning and dedication, where everything you profess to hold dear either shows up, or doesn’t, for all to see. In amongst all these various labors, the one most fraught – at the same time the least visible and most tenuous – is the cutting. This is the make or break, the rubber hitting the road, and truly the joy and sorrow of the soulful leather craftsman. After the blood, sweat and tears of all the tanning, the thought of putting scissors to this immaculate landscape of a skin is almost unbearable-every time. Into the fire, through the threshold, down to the underworld, across the river and out to sea-it often seems the fresh cut pattern pieces could never be more beautiful, more perfect-and now you’re in, there is nothing else until that garment is complete.