2008 Craft Show Artists

I hand-cut, dye and finish top-grain cowhide and design unique closures and architectural forms. I create functional and artful pieces with the highest quality leather allowing years of wear. I strive to achieve designs that can become classic.

Bags patterned by intuitive mathematical reductionist concepts. The object was to create a 3-dimensional vessel from as simple a flat pattern as possible. They are a form of Organic Geometry, an Iconoclast's Choice.

Handbags are made using lambsuede which has been silk-screened. Decorative techniques such as weaving, trapunto, beading, pleating and embroidery are used on the one-of-a-kind and limited edition pieces.

Rob and Barbara Mathews hand make custom shoes, boots, and bags. Each piece is unique, made for the individual client, and fashioned from a wide array of the finest leathers from around the world including calf, kid, kid suede, buffalo, alligator, ostrich, and stingray. We strive to blend form and function, art, and craft in surprsing ways to offer beautiful, useful solutions to every design challenge. Leather's rich textures and vibrant colors convey the inspiration and excitement in our work.

All of our lambskin and shearling jackets are hand sewn in our studio with the help of one assistant. Our work is all limited edition or one of a kind. Our stitchwork and tailoring are what sets our work apart from others. We make coats to measure, and to our customers color choices. We have been making coats and jackets together for the past 25 years, and take pride in pushing our technical limits at all times, and giving our customers a truly wearable piece of artwork that is timeless.

We consider our work conceptual design. How to excite the senses with unusual combinations of materials, textures, colors and styles. This 'One of a Kind' group is one of our latest efforts toward that attitude. Techniques, mastered at the 'Ecole de Couture de Charles Montaigne' in Amsterdam are used in the treatment of lambskin, overlayed with silks and brocades, to evoke maybe far away cultures, while simultaneously injecting color into the traditionally monochrome character of leather and shearling. Our signature seaming is present in all our work, not overlapping materials, but having it side by side. It guarantees drape and never increases the volume anywhere in the piece, while actually adding a sculptural effect, and transparency of construction by way of their visibility. The animals we construct our pieces of are always used for food first, and we gladly make use of their skin so no part of what the animal has to offer will go to waste.