Around Townsend, we have been talking a lot lately, about all the many reasons to love leather (but that of course, is the norm around here). There are so many different reasons to love leather, but as we have been talking one point especially keeps coming up – Craftsmanship.
High quality leather lends itself so well to incredible craftsmanship. A finished project is only as good as the materials that go into it, so to create something truly masterful, you have to start with masterfully created materials.
The ever-stunning custom furniture house, Hancock & Moore, recently pushed out a video titled, In Vogue. This is essentially a near 10 minute love letter to Leather. The video does a fantastic job of expressing many of the feelings generated from the look, feel, and smell of leather.
Hancock and Moore, In Vogue, Love Letter to Leather Video
If you love leather, you will want to watch this to hear the designers speak so eloquently, what we all are thinking. And if you are still new to leather, you will want to watch to take a peak inside the mind of others and see what all the hubbub is about.
They do a fantastic job in this video expressing the benefits of leather, with some really stunning examples of their masterfully crafted furniture. These are designers with vision and exacting standards and leather is the only material that, not only can meet those visions and standards, but can do it while exciting.
Another example of leather loving craftsmanship that we came across, had all the same depth of feeling and certainly explores the value and meaning of craftsmanship – but approaches with a strong sense of humor.
The handbag company, Saddleback Leather Co. creates high quality rugged but beautiful handbags and leather goods. When they realized their products were so popular and highly desired that they were being knocked-off by low quality fakes, the company decided to have a little bit of fun with a video.
The video was featured on FastCompany, and shows the handbag designer and company CEO, talking into the camera directly to the people looking to knock-off his bags. In doing so, he is able to clearly explain the high quality of real luxury leather. Pointing out how much money can be saved on low quality leather or even vinyl, and explaining how the bag will look worse and won’t last long at all, but “you don’t care about that” he says semi-jokingly, helping to strongly make the case that high quality materials and attentive craftsmanship not only bring beauty to the pieces, but longevity and true value.
Saddleback Leather Explanation of Quality (How to Knock Off a Bag) Video
Let us know all the reasons you love leather and high quality craftsmanship, on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/townsendleathercompany
Just a couple weeks in, and 2014 is already proving to be a positive and exciting year. A Polar Vortex with sub-zero temperatures, award shows, BridgeGate… so much happening around the country, around the world, and especially at Townsend Leather.
We have just launched some truly impressive internal software, which brings in a lot of new abilities. This software will mean some changes for the way we do things in Townsend, but it mostly means even better service to you. This is cutting edge technology with lots of improvements for how we track and push information internally. We will now have even better ways to track your leather in and out of production, have more detailed account information, and all around make us more efficient and knowledgeable.
But boring ol’ software (even though it will make us vastly more effective and you even happier) isn’t the only NEW at Townsend. (And it’s not boring at all actually, what with the vast amount of improvements, cool touch screen monitors, exciting new time savings, fun tips, lunch time meetings and so much more).
We have a bunch of exciting new products in the works, sure to please any design sensibility. A sneak preview is shown below. Utilizing our “ART & D” department we continue to push leather further, using production techniques and hands-on artistry that can’t be replicated. We have been thoroughly researching design trends and are already producing leathers that will be trend setters themselves.
At Townsend we are also focused on getting healthy, we have started a new Weight Loss Challenge, you can read about it on our News blog. We have competing teams striving for even greater healthyness and a bunch of health supporting initiatives planned for this year. As well as a calendar full of health workshops, presentations, and initiatives. 2014 will be a healthy year at Townsend!
We have been looking to the 2014 new trends in design and fashion already this year.
Below is a sneak peak of our Pantone Color of the Year inspired collection as well as some other exciting leathers that are just in the works now, including some really stunning new patterns. Some of these patterns we even further enhanced with some proprietary one-of-a-kind techniques. We also are working on some new “aged” leathers, that playfully and elegantly take some well known Townsend looks, and give them a “new/old” twist.
Samples of these leathers are not quite yet available, as these are each just in the development stage, but will soon be made widely available. If you see something you love, let us know at info@townsendleather.com or on our facebook page or contact to us if you have suggestions of some leathers you would like to see.
We are not even a month into 2014 and already all of this exciting new leather and fun happenings – 2014 is sure to be a healthy, productive, efficient, fun, exciting, and beautiful year! We hope the same for you!
[nggallery id=4]
New year, greater health!
Townsend Leather is dedicated to an even healthier team. We have a calendar full of health initiatives. One of the most exciting is our team Weight Loss Challenge. With at least 8 Teams competing (and more to come) Townsend is taking charge of our health in 2014. In just the first week alone, Townsend had already collectively lost nearly 100 pounds!
Teams compete weekly to reduce overall weight percentage, but do so in health minded ways. We are also learning each week with guest speakers ranging from body measurements to blood type diets.
Our winning team will win $, prizes, and a gym membership! It really pays to lose!
We are also continuing our Fresh Fruit Fridays and will be having lots of other health workshops and events over the coming weeks.
Townsend is excitedly looking forward to a healthy and fun 2014.
Townsend Leather’s 2014 Calendar at a glance…
In this time of reflection, sharing, and holiday spirit we at Townsend Leather always like to take a moment and reflect on our year. 2013 was another exciting year in the world and in the world of Townsend.
We encourage you to browse the past year of blog posts to see if you missed anything, or our company news feed – to keep up on some of the noteworthy moments at Townsend in 2013.
You can see a brief photographic glance at some moments of 2013 at Townsend Leather below. But as we look back on 2013, we also want to look forward to 2014 with hope, and so we leave you with these words – a “Message from the President of Townsend Leather”…
“ It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. ”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Jared Eckler
Townsend Leather President
A PASSION FOR Leather, Luxury and Design
A photographic look at some moments of Townsend Leather’s 2013, presented in random order…
And if you are looking to catch up on anything you might have missed or just relive some big moments in 2013 worldwide, take a look through some of these links:
Happy Holidays to all, see you in 2014!
After some minor food logistic mishaps, our Holiday Luncheon kicked off with lots of laughs and good times.
It always impresses that the team that puts these events on are able to pull everything together so wonderfully so quickly. They are magicians who know how to please, and can pull off impress tricks like turning this into this…
We all got to enjoy an extended lunch with an abundance of food, good memories, and good company. We spent time reflecting on the past year, watching photos from all the big Townsend moments. And enjoyed celebrating the many successes from the past year, with big milestones, new employees, new machines, new processes, new products, and lots of fun.
As anyone and any company, Townsend has its share of peaks and valleys throughout 2013, but spent the time today sharing in the brotherhood and team that Townsend is. And we were each proud to be a part of this team that honors each other and works so hard to hold each other up.
We had plenty of food and plenty of good conversation.
We even had a Cookie Bake-Off competition.
But the winners of the Cookie Bake-Off weren’t the only winners of the day, we also had a bunch of raffles with winners receiving gift cards and lottery baskets.
We even had (what may turn out to be a new Townsend holiday tradition) our first Pizza Raffle! A few very lucky individuals didn’t have to cook dinner last night after taking home a delicious pizza!
But the highlight of every Holiday luncheon is hearing the heartfelt words of wisdom and insight shared by our fearless and tireless president. Jared spoke of some highlights of the past year, shared touching stories and accounts of the partners we will see retire at the end of this year, and he also spoke of the positive outlook for 2014 and all the ways we can make our team even stronger.
2014 is going to usher in a lot of new things at Townsend and we are, now, all feeling ready and hyped up to meet this new year running.
We look forward to charging into this new year along with you.
Do you like Facebook? Do you like Townsend Leather? Do you like winning stuff?!
Well then we have good news for you!
We want to be sure all our customers and fans stay up to date with everything that is going on at Townsend, and one of the best ways to do that, is to LIKE and follow Townsend Leather on facebook.
But, we want to sweeten things even more for you, not only do you get to connect with Townsend and stay in-the-know of everything going on here, but 1 out of every 50 LIKEs to our page will be randomly chosen to win a luxury leather good!
And, if you happen to be one of the lucky “likers” to be a hundredth liker (be the 200th, 300th…person to LIKE us), you will automatically win a special prize from Townsend Leather.
Good luck and see you on the ‘book’!
