Emily Blumenthal
Host
00:00
Hi and welcome to the Handbag Designer 101 podcast with your host, Emily Blumenthal, handbag designer expert and handbag fairy godmother, where we cover everything about handbags, from making, marketing, designing and talking to handbag designers and industry experts about what it takes to make a successful handbag.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
00:24
Welcome, Tanner Leatherstein to the Handbag Designer 101 podcast. So happy to have you.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
00:29
Thanks for having me, thanks for the invitation and taking the time. I am happy to be here.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
00:34
Good you should be. Listen, your rise to fame is pretty wild, so why don't you give a quick overview of who you are and what you are and what you do, and then we'll get to the roots and the weeds as to how you got to where you are?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
00:47
Absolutely. Tanner Leatherstein is my personal brand. It's not my actual name. That's usually the first question to clear. That would be too good to be true, doing what I do and having that name and last name. So my real name is Vulcan and I was born in Turkey and I think it was about 2009. I moved to the United States out of just a brand.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
01:10
Business, but for business school right.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
01:12
No, no, it was a green card lottery that I didn't even apply. Someone did for me and it was who applied for you. So that was a company. I applied about three, four years prior to that and they said I checked the box for them to make it five years in repetition. I forgot?
Emily Blumenthal
Host
01:30
Oh it's. You continue to apply every single year.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
01:32
Yes, and then first year I was waiting and then it didn't happen. I forgot about all that. Yeah, yeah To three or third or fourth year I received this email saying that I want a green card. I was like, oh, let me read this email. How they want to scam me and all that stuff. That's how it started. So, which makes sense. That's how I came here and until that point I was all in, led there. I was born into a family on tenor in Turkey and I was running behind my father in business since I was eight, nine years old.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
02:01
Can I ask you something about that?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
02:03
Yeah, absolutely.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
02:04
So where in Turkey are you from?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
02:07
Çanakkale is my hometown, which is the ancient Troy region in the northwest coast. It's right across Greece and it's like four or five hours drive from Istanbul. That's where I grew up, that's where we had our tenor.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
02:20
So you grew up in one area and then the family had to drive back and forth to get to the tenor, or you moved from Turkey.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
02:27
No, we were all in Çanakkale, in the tenor town. We were living there, but most of our business was in Istanbul. So basically we were going and coming back from Istanbul once a week. It was like just we had the whole family in both places. Mostly my dad, but pretty much every other week we were going as well, just for the weekend and things like that. So it was a lot of traveling.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
02:48
How many siblings do you have?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
02:50
I have a brother. He's still in Turkey and currently my brand, pegay. He's doing the manufacturing and crafting in the same building that used to be our tenor. Now we turned it into a workshop.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
03:03
Well, you knew the owner right Of the buildings.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
03:05
Yes, yes, yes.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
03:06
Difficult.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
03:07
Yes.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
03:08
So was it understood that you would go into the family business per se, or did you want to? Or was it like hey, this is Vulcan, like welcome to the business?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
03:18
I was dying to. My dad really enjoyed having me around, but I was the one dying to get in. They had to convince me to go to college. I was ready to drop out of that high school and just go full into leather tanning but they forced me, like you have to go to college and get a degree. And that's how I got a degree eventually in business.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
03:39
It's a good thing they did.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
03:40
Yes, yes, absolutely. Then it led me to get my MBA here, and all that without a college degree. I wouldn't be able to do anything. Do that?
Emily Blumenthal
Host
03:48
So did you immediately work with your dad through college? After college? Was it like okay, here, Baba, I'm here, you can get me to?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
03:56
make. Basically it was during high school. I was very involved. I was technically running the tanner because my dad was always traveling. I was the one taking care of the production and tanner. Even though I was in high school, after school, during breaks I was just on my phone doing the work.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
04:14
Was that weird for the workers? I'm sure they had worked for your dad for the whole time. His turnover at factory is just really low over there. It's the same thing. He's worked there year after year. And here's the kid, the son of the owner, who's telling me what to do.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
04:26
Well, it didn't feel weird to me At the beginning. It was a little uncomfortable Sometimes having tough conversations with 50-year-old masters in the tannery because nobody else is there. I got used to it and I don't think they took it weirdly because I was always there. They were used to me. They saw me grow up. The kid was always around, oh my.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
04:47
God, what did they make in the tannery? Was it specific to one thing or the other? What was it?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
04:54
Mainly we were doing lamb sheep skins for garment production. That was our main line, either in an APA format without the hair, like the ones you see behind me Right, or then we started making the double face, we call it, which we keep the hair on the sheepskin as well, that you can make the jackets that has the fur as well. We were mainly doing that but as some side projects requested, we were doing goat skins and some cow hides for different productions as well, including rabbits and different things. I've experimented in tannery.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
05:27
Considering where you are now and coming from another country, I'm sure wastage was something that did not exist Any fall off or anything. There was always a way to find something to do with it.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
05:39
Right. So basically, the essence of leather business is that, basically, the raw hide is a wastage. If you don't touch it within the hour after the animal is slaughtered, it's just a trash, and it's a trash that could be infectious. It needs to be handled carefully. It starts vitrifying right away. We take it, we salt it and then the tannery process starts so it can get a second life as leather. So once you are in this industry, you always look at things like nothing should go to waste. Right, that's what happens in leather. Even the wastage from the tannery process goes back to sub-industries, turning into different things. Right, sometimes you might see what goes in there. It could be disgusting Imagining that's going to turn into a makeup product or things like that, or maybe even food ingredient. But nothing is wasted in the industry, and that was a good way to learn making stuff, I think.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
06:32
It's so fascinating because I think the background you have right. There are so many people nowadays who aspirationally want to become designers, want to become creators. One of the things I always say amongst other people is get experience working for someone else so you understand the process, the back end, because my first job was in media and someone said you'd never open up a clothing store if you didn't know how to shop. That stayed with me right, Because you have to know how to buy. You have to know the process from inception, I mean from this case, from the farm. Having this experience it puts you 100 steps ahead already, without even probably being aware of that.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
07:14
Exactly. I wasn't aware of that. I was only in the tanning side up until 2016, 2017. I know how to take a roll height and make it into leather, and we were selling it to shoe makers, garment makers or handbag makers, but I haven't done anything further than that. It's extremely valuable, though, getting experience from the designers, working with them, understanding the creation process, because it's an entirely different world. Again, I'm trying to learn every day now for the past six, seven years, but knowing the leather in depth, as I had the privilege to learn Intimately, yes, and the network you accumulate in the past 20, 25 years all leather makers, tanneries around the world like where you can find what, who does best, what is immensely helpful when you try to design something. You know, I know where I'm going to get that exact specific material that I need here.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
08:10
And I ask you, though, just from an expert perspective and I spoke about this in my book, but I had to actually go to an expert because this wasn't knowledge that I had In your personal opinion, which hides and skins and animals are best for which silhouettes? Can you just share those nuggets of gold with us? And I think, and it's so, many designers make leather based backpacks, and to me, in my opinion, I always think that's always a least, because they always sell the least right, unless it's a name brand, because, at the end of the day, the function of a backpack is to overstuff and to carry their less fashion forward again, unless it's a label. Do you have an opinion on that? And also, which skins for what bodies?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
08:53
So it is a very deep subject.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
08:56
Can we talk about this all day. This is so my jam. You don't even know Like forget your whole history. So in terms of which leathers and skins do you think and I know it's a loaded and long answered question, but just for the neo fights listening what would you say?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
09:09
So I think, if I have to generalize yeah, purely generalizing Make something that is soft. It doesn't have to hold a lot of former structure and we're talking about bags here. Lamp skin is absolutely perfect, you know. It has a soft, nice touch. It's a good material that definitely distinct in feeling and look. It's lighter yeah, lighter. It's delicate. It's not going to last as long as a cow height, but that would be nice if you're working with a soft, silly weight.
09:41
If you're going to work with something that needs to hold its shape which most of the fashion bags has to, you know, in the fancy space then cow and calf works a little better because it's a more strict fiber structure. We can't tend it in a way that will hold itself Almost never. We completely rely on the fashion space to have the leather keep the form. We use the support materials inside but of course, using cow and calf goes a long way. Calf is absolutely preferred over cow hides because a younger skin has a finer grain structure. As long as the finish is not overly covering it, you can enjoy it more, has a better touch, a lot softer, almost like you touched your skin when you're 15 years old. It feels different. Why are you four years old if you use different. So calf and cow is kind of that touch and look, feel.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
10:29
I always explain to people that you're buying skins and it's going to change any valve over time, just like yours, like whether it's the oils, whether it's the exposure, whether it's the light, and always to remember that you are buying as and people cringe, but it is a skin, the end.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
10:47
Absolutely. It is a skin and it's just turned into a way that's not going to pitrify forever, almost, but it is a skin at the end of the day. And especially what I always try to preach the minimally finished letters. That's where we can enjoy the actual characteristics of leather. As long as the finish is not covering what's underneath, we will get to enjoy that natural creation of that skin. So definitely, cow hides is more for the form than structured silhouettes and we talked about backpacks. If we're going to do a backpack, I think my go to is again cow hide because of durability. Even if you stuff it, stretch it, it could be like semi soft, maybe tumbled letters with some pebbled grains, but I will like to see some waterproofing done in the tannery side because it's going to be out there. Adventurous types may carry this. That would be my go to a material in leather backpack area.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
11:39
Perfect, Such good nuggets. People are going to need to listen to this a hundred times. So you're in Turkey and again I apologize for doing a deep, deep dive on you. So you went from Turkey and then you went to Armenia, which so cool. How are you? You were in Yerevan, right?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
11:57
So, yeah, I was in Yerevan for about six months right before I moved to the States. Prior to that, I was in Turkmenistan running a tannery for about a year and that's where I got my green card lottery notification Wild. And how I ended up there was in 2007,. My dad decided to move our tannery to Turkmenistan, so you went with that. Yes, I went with it. At the time I was in China actually doing some leather buying, sourcing, consulting for some companies in Turkey.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
12:27
How did your dad feel about that? Or he was like go for it.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
12:30
Well, he always let me do whatever I wanted and he loved that experience. He was learning with me too there, but my plan was to stay in China for a longer time, but as soon as I heard he's moving the tannery, he was going to need me to run it there. And then I just came back and joined the menistan. I was about a year of torture and disaster. We left everything. It was insane corruption and green card lottery was my ticket out of the hell and I went to Yerevan to wait for my green card visa. I ran another tannery there for about six months and then I came here.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
13:03
It's funny. I worked in Russia for a couple of years and there's so much opportunity coupled with as soon as you get successful. In countries like that, the government always gets involved and because they always know when somebody starts becoming successful. And then they come in and either inform you they're getting half, demand that they're getting half, or that they're getting the larger portion of it and that you have no stake or claim to it as a result of not being a native to the country. So it's tricky, you know, and the funny thing is that you, as a manufacturer, we're only trying to do good by the country to get more exports for them.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
13:42
Exactly that was my experience in Turkmenistan, so it's kind of tricky. We went there because we were thinking the leather is there. There's not enough tanneries in the country.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
13:51
Like an intact market.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
13:52
Exactly. We can process the leather, we can export it out of this country, definitely bringing revenue here, but of course we're not going to do it for free. Our goal is to make money too, because it's a cheaper country. You know we have our interests as well. But the point we miss is that the things we don't see in the first glance, that corruption and, you know, illegal things getting involved as soon as you start your operation there. And that's what happened, you know, every day different part of government was showing up for another bribe and for about a year we tried to work but they didn't let us and we just left everything and get out of there Everything.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
14:26
It's like you built this whole thing and you're like happened on a plane one day back to Turkey like OK, well, that was interesting and that was it.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
14:32
That's it, that's what happened.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
14:35
So then you went to Armenia, where you were like hey, baba, I'm going to Armenia. Like see you in a bit, I'm going to figure like wait some time out until I go to the US.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
14:44
No, this was actually basically end of the year. In Turkmenistan, we realized this is not happening and we met an Armenian person, a tradesperson in Turkmenistan. He was doing a lot of deals with government and you know in the region and he happened to know a businessman in Armenia who owned the tannery but couldn't run it for so long. He was looking for a partnership to run it together. That's how we ended up transitioning to Armenia in that context.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
15:12
Did your dad go?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
15:12
with you. Yeah, yeah, we were. We were together, like even my whole family, like my. Even my mom was there for a while with us. Yeah, my brother.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
15:21
That's it. Like you guys were leather nomads.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
15:24
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
15:27
Can I ask you, just as a functional question, having you know, as an American, we are not historically known for having linguistic strength. I happen to be lucky enough to study a bunch of languages growing up. What did you speak in all these countries?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
15:41
Well, I don't speak Russian. I kind of got used to a little bit in my Turkmenistan and Armenian experience. You know just a few words in Russian, but none of us my dad, my brother spoke Russian at the moment. My brother was the most advanced All of us. He studied in Uzbekistan for about a year and he was able to communicate at the basic level when we were there. Right now he's fully fluent. His wife is Russian, so he's completely running his life in Russian now. But at the time we didn't speak Russian. In Turkmenistan it wasn't too difficult. Their language, turkmen language, is very close to Turkish 70, 80 percent, same base. They understand us, so it wasn't difficult. That's how we got by. And Armenia we just had some translators going around with us.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
16:29
So no English.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
16:30
No, yeah, the English is not that common there they, yeah, it doesn't help much.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
16:36
Wow, that's so fascinating because as an American you know one would assume Turkey, turkmenistan that there would be some sort of connection. I mean, obviously historically there is, but you never know right. So like what is it? Norwegian, I think, is the only language that has no historical connection to anything. It's one of those Scandinavian countries. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
16:58
Yeah, but Turkish has that connection. Actually, I heard this you could start traveling east from Turkey and you can reach to China while just speaking Turkish, because all the countries you're going to pass, if you're on the right path, will speak a form of Turkish.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
17:12
That's wild. So look at you, so you're covered if you keep going east, right yeah.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
17:17
But I learned my lesson. I think I'm not going to continue that, so oh my God.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
17:24
So all right, you're in Armenia, green card comes through, then you just end up in Chicago.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
17:30
Yeah, yeah, I was in New Jersey briefly first, like six months.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
17:33
That makes sense.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
17:34
One should always start in New Jersey Like, yeah, I've been there for a couple of summers for summer program in my college before we call it work and travel and from that time I knew an Italian family like crazy smart businessman one of the smartest businessmen I've ever seen. I learned a lot from him. So I came to New Jersey start working with him. I'm working for him. He was doing textile business. It was quite boring for six months for me in the summer town of Jersey and I was looking for a little bit more friends and stuff like that.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
18:06
And a suburb of New Jersey. Here you've traveled the world through all this chaos and now you're like in the suburb with the backyard. Yeah, why? Because they didn't have good coffee there either, I'm sure. So well, they were Italian, so they should have right.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
18:20
Yeah, well, I mean, everything was fine. The social life was a little lacking, and that's why I ended up in Chicago, which I loved, and I was there for nine years.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
18:28
Why not in New York City, if you're so close?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
18:31
I was going back and forth almost every day. My Jersey work was intense. I was waking up 4 AM every day and coming back home about midnight. So like four hours sleep, six months, I was driving a huge truck delivering textiles to New York, philadelphia and back to New Jersey every day. So that was insane. I didn't enjoy New York with that kind of schedule so I didn't want to do that.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
18:54
That's it. Oh my God. Yeah, so it must have been Central Jersey. If that was the case, if you had that community Out Jersey.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
19:00
Out Jersey. It was so fun.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
19:02
Oh God, that breaks my heart. I know that drive. It's not a fun one.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
19:06
Oh no.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
19:07
Now you go past the Meadowlands and you're like, oh, I still have so much longer to go.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
19:12
Exactly the New Jersey the other state parkway ends where I get home that kind of thing Like it's crazy.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
19:18
Yeah, that's a hard pass. I would have gone to Chicago too, because that's like city light. So you got your MBA in Chicago, did you go there and then apply, or you were like no.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
19:28
I was a cab driver for three and a half years in Chicago Like full-time cab driver. From my friend's suggestions I started that and trying to establish a new life here. I don't know what I'm going to do, but there's not a huge thing in the US, especially tenories, so cab driving paid the bills three and a half years. I met a lot of consultants with the cab business and first time I'm hearing about consulting I'm asking them what do you guys do? They say we basically solve business problems. Like that sounds interesting. How can I become a consultant? Probably easiest way is to get an MBA. That's how I started to thinker and switched to MBA after the cab driver thing.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
20:08
Wow, so were you still driving a cab and getting your MBA?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
20:12
No, I did a full-time MBA in the University of Illinois, champagne, and I'm a Champagne. So I moved to Champagne full-time two years MBA program and then I got a consulting job, came back to Chicago.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
20:23
Where you tell people what to do.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
20:25
Yes, exactly, but that was my first corporate job. Did it kill you? It did it only lasted a year, like I'm like. No, I'm not made for this. I was actually tired of not having anything to do. I'm trying to look like I'm working. I'm doing something. I was just Smoking mirrors. I started to question why are they paying me so much money? I'm not creating value. I just felt super uncomfortable and I ended up quitting without knowing what I'm going to do next.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
20:53
Wow. So in 2016, you started Pagai. So how did that happen? Like were you still day-jobbing at that point.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
21:04
No, so I quit consulting. I went back to Uber driving because, you know, I'm familiar with the cab concept in Chicago. I'm making a living for the first month or two and I'm thinking how can I go back to leather, because I missed it at this point. It's been about almost eight years now. I'm far from leather and I realized this Etsy thing. People are, you know, doing wallets and selling it. I'm like, oh, this sounds like a profitable thing, but I don't know how to design a wallet. I don't know how to make a wallet, so I got into YouTube. You know the Uber driving waiting at the airports, youtube being how to design wallet, learning how to use the illustrator and how to do saddle stitching at home. So that's all the trial.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
21:44
Listen, I'm buying the rights to your life because this is going to make a movie and I'm here for it. I called it first. That is amazing. You know when I got to stay, coming from where you came from, as a true immigrant, right, there's no shame in doing anything that helps you make money. It is what everything means to an end Like there's nothing. You know, like you needed money. You have this amazing MBA, you've traveled the globe, the now what? But the fact that you were like I can still do both and have something basically pay me while I figure it out, is pretty incredible.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
22:18
Right, and you know, being an immigrant, probably it's easier for us to realize this. America is a great place to have all these opportunities for you, as long as you want to make it happen. Yeah, there is limitless things you can work on, learn and turn it into a profession and make a great living out of. So I was fortunate enough to be here to do all this stuff. You know you can't do this in Turkey, you can't do this in nowhere else.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
22:46
Basically, Now I can say Now I mean, I totally, totally agree with you. I worked in Moscow and then I worked in London, and even working in London to see the differences, like you know one who doesn't know any better, but coming from a country that is a uniform government and how it's run historically, like no one's changing anything there, they really aren't. But America was founded on privatization. So with that it kind of messes with the system, right, because we really have a system that isn't a system, but with that kind of space it allows you to do whatever you want. It's there for the taking.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
23:21
Exactly, exactly. So that's not only me, that's the environment making it possible. So that's definitely a great advantage.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
23:30
So here you are. You figured out how to make wallets. Was that kind of like? It must have been hilarious to you Like, hey, I know how to make the leather, but I don't know how to make any product with it.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
23:40
It's frustrating. So you understand. I don't understand. I'm like these wallets look simple. We're talking Etsy wallets, right, like it's layers of leather put together and it's simple. But if you don't know, you don't know I have to go in and then learning how to draw things with Illustrator, then print it out, cut it onto leather.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
23:57
Did you have to teach yourself Illustrator?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
23:59
Yes, yes, like everything is basically from YouTube, like I'm watching people who are sharing their knowledge, which I appreciate. And soon I tried a few different designs. I'm like they don't look that good, you know, they don't look as good as the ones on Etsy, but I improved. I made like 10, 15, 20 different and I'm still thinking nobody would buy this. But hey, I'm going to put it on. You know, I don't care. I put it on Etsy and I got an order and then I got another one the next day, I got two the other day, I got three the next day. I'm like hold on. This is interesting. Now we're talking with my brother. He's not doing anything either. In Turkey Now our factory building is abandoned, you know, completely in trash condition since we moved. I said why don't you guys make this and I focus on design and selling and marketing, and that's how we started.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
24:47
So can I ask you, though, were you able to figure out correct pricing? Because the shipping alone? You know it's tricky, right Like you know how to cost out the materials, but to cost out the labor, the time value that it takes to put into the product and then have it ship it over, was that something that you had to learn Like? Did you have any thoughts on that? Because I'm sure in itself it's like wait I undercharged, wait I overcharged, wait the shipping. I didn't even think about the shipping cost.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
25:15
So initially it was everything is new, like I have no idea how to send a product from Turkey to you, or how much it's going to cost the customs tax, the procedures I have no clue but For things getting lost if you think like, let me save some money and ship it with a national mail service, and you never ship it up.
25:31
Exactly Never showed up. We lost hope and then two months later it showed up Like okay, here it is, but regardless, we started using DHL the most reliable so far in my experience and I was like, oh, it's not that difficult. And because I did my pricing when I was making my wallets in my apartment in Chicago, it settled stitching. You know, my pricing was not cheap because it took so much time for me to make anything. You know, hair cutting and sewing. Right Now, once we turn into producing in Turkey my pricing I was able to actually take it down a notch because I'm still profitable covering all the making than shipping of it using the best leather I could get my hands on and the pricing worked out basically Probably fully handmade. Beginning gave me a good pricing structure understanding and then I was able to take my prices a little bit down because I found I mean more affordable ways to make the same product better product actually.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
26:29
So did you put it on your brother at some point to say, okay, find someone who could make this stuff for us, because I can't keep making it?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
26:36
Well, yeah, that's why we got a sewing machine that we don't even know how to use a sewing machine. We couldn't control it. It goes so fast. I was turning with my hand in Turkey first, first trip, and he's holding the thing and we ended up hiring a person who knows how to use a sewing machine and my dad, him and the sewing guy. They started making these and ship shipping it to me. Me and my wife is doing the personalization packaging, shipping from our Chicago apartment at the beginning?
Emily Blumenthal
Host
27:06
Did she have a say in this or you were like hey, by the way, I need you to tell me about.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
27:11
No, she supported me from every beginning of every adventure. We're very close. I'm very fortunate to be with my wife 24 hours. We're still like that. She works from home. She's a consultant.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
27:24
As a consultant.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
27:25
Yes, and she's coming to my workshop every morning with me, helps with anything she can when she has free time and we come back home, we play with our kids. We're 24 hours literally together every day and we love it Like we couldn't change it.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
27:40
That's how, thank God, huh, yeah, exactly, it doesn't work for a lot of couples, I know. Oh my God, no, that's a tricky dance in itself. So how did you end up in Texas? And how did you end up with Pagai? Like, when did you say, okay, we're going to call it Pagai and, by the way, we're moving to Texas?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
28:00
So that's interesting. The original brand was going to be Leatherstein and I had a little hiccup when I was opening my Etsy store. I couldn't get that name and I had to think of something else. Pagai is my hometown in Turkey. Its ancient Greek name was Pagai. Right now it's called Biga. I'm like, okay, I'm going to take that. And I found the domain was available for a premium purchase. I bought it because it was short, sweet and it had a meaning for me. That's how it started and within the first year or two we had to get a small workshop in Chicago. The orders were coming in, we had an employee and all that stuff, and in Turkey we had a team of maybe 10 artisans working with us. Wow, yeah, it grew pretty quickly and I think it was 2019.
28:47
I was absolutely done with the cold weather in Chicago For the past 12 months. We were just looking for where can we move With warmer climates? Somewhere that makes sense, Because I can move my business. It's flexible, Right, right, right. We checked a bunch of places California, Florida, Washington, Houston, Seattle, all that stuff and we came to Dallas and we were like, okay, that's it. And we were almost about to have our first kid and I wanted to have it in a bigger space, not in an apartment in Chicago. So we made a quick decision to move to Dallas in 2009 summer.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
29:24
Yet Wow, that's crazy. So you named the brand Pagai. You're making money. You're employing people in Turkey. You're employing people domestically. You and your wife are home baby making wallets, small leather goods, or slugs as some of them call. Had you moved to regular bags at that point, or just you know no?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
29:44
Not the handbags in the fashion sense we were doing more Like. This is more of an Etsy Amazon business at this stage. Still, we have our own website, but most of the things designs are basic. There is no inner support and things like that. The bag you can find on Etsy and the code happened and all that stuff. You know we had to close, run everything in our garage here for a while.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
30:06
But that's not anything you weren't already familiar with. It was like a hiccup, and you've been there, done that.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
30:12
Oh, right away we figured it out Like that was actually, you know, worked out just fine. We actually seeing an increase in the orders. Probably people were shopping more because they were home and all that stuff. It was really busy with three month old baby in hand, but well, we handled it.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
30:26
That's good. You need more than just a baby to do, let me tell you. So this takes us to your Tigtak awakening. I guess we could call it. What was that moment?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
30:39
So this was actually a personal realization happened in 2020. We took a trip to Maui, hawaii, with my son and, you know, my wife. I don't know what happened there, but on the way back I had to write this down. It came to me so clearly in my mind in the airplane. I had to open my notes app and I have to write it down.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
31:00
I'm like do you know something that when you're flying, your mind is much more stimulated? They say for anybody who's working or has a creative mind never sleep on a plane, because your best ideas will always come when you're flying. Fyn.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
31:12
Really At first time I heard this, but that's the experience, I experienced it. I put it down on a paper. I realized I'm here to help people understand leather because, putting all the dust together in my life whoever know my involvement with leather they've been asking me hey, I got this leather jacket, I got this shoe belt bag, whatever you name it. Can you look? Is it good? Did I pay too much? You know? Is it real? Is it fake? Right At that moment I'm like people love leather, everybody wants to use it, but they don't really know enough to be comfortable with making their own decisions. Sometimes they feel like they're cheated. So I'm here to help them understand this material a little bit Better. And I can use social media. So that was kind of the clarity of purpose came to me.
31:58
Up until that point I was dabbling in everything you know. I was buying a CNC machine, trying to learn different things. I'm a handy person. I love doing woodwork, like I have tools and things trying to explore so many things. But after that clarity, I'm not looking at anything else. It's only leather for me. That was like I realized why I was here and that's how that video thing started. I've been experimenting with different ways to convey leather information to people in different videos since then. But the first wider video happened last year, last August, when I was talking about Chanel and their wallet and it exploded and people start asking can you read this, can you do that? And I've been just following it.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
32:40
That's crazy. Now I am, as I affectionately have referred to myself as Garment Do Offspray. So my father was a converter in the Garment Center, garment District. So he would buy gray goods you know the big drums, the big rolls as I'm sure you're familiar and then send them to factories and mills to get dyed and then he would then resell them. He was the middleman. Now, as everybody you know, the middleman. At this point, other than in Europe there really are no more converters because people go straight to factories. That set has been wiped out. Thank God that's the case. Because he used to travel only in the US where there was domestic production. Like I remember someone had paid him in cowboy boots, once a factory.
33:27
So understanding, you know we were never allowed to have labels growing up because we were always taught the cost of goods Like, oh, you know, the markup on this is insane. No, you don't need the real gas jeans. No, you don't need the real this. Like we would get the closeouts, the seconds, even in some cases the knockoffs, like you know, one leg was longer than the other or whatever. Like, oh, my mom's, like I can fix that.
33:52
So this whole essence of understanding and always looking at product made by independence has really impacted me by looking at name brands, because I have friends who, much like you know, who didn't grow up the way, theoretically, we did, and don't look at these high end products and saying, like the markup on this is insane. I know how much this is a yard Like. I'm not spending a 2000 markup just because they smack a logo on it. And that's what drew me to you, because I'm like he gets it. He gets it. But you know that's obviously not going to change. We are a consumer public. That's who we are as a people, as a culture especially. You know anybody wants you have an element of means. The whole point of it is letting other people know Exactly. So the fact that you're decrypting it is like, oh, you're the beacon.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
34:39
So I think that's why I clicked with people, because so many of us kind of knows that's not worth it from a material standpoint, right, like they know how much it can cost? Right, probably not exactly. But to conclude, it's not going to be $3,000 for that much leather. But some people are still questioning because leather is a tricky material. It has been associated with luxury thousands of years you know all the kings and warriors awarded because it was rare, expensive. Nowadays it's not the case. It's really not that expensive. But big brands really still play on that historical luxury essence of leather to create that mystical, you know, quality. So this is $3,000, probably it's awesome leather, incredible. That's what I wanted to tell people. It's not really about leather. I have huge respect for these brands. What they created are amazing and super difficult, but they are not in the leather business, they are in the prestige business.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
35:37
They're in the branding business.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
35:38
Exactly, they engineer a luxury onto a leather bag because it's a great medium to carry the luxury on it, correct, and it is super hard to engineer that luxury. By the way, I'm not, you know, 100%, overlooking that 100% I can't do that. Probably nobody else can do that. There's only 10, 20 brands who have done it successfully and that's it. You know that's the price you have to pay if you want to buy that and there is a huge demand for it too. People who buy that stuff there, they know they're buying status, they know they're not buying just a bag, some of whom may be trying to justify a little too much. You know it's super high quality and it's great design, but it's all biased because you're paying so much money and you're trying to convince yourself it's great. I'm not saying they're bad. Most of them are really well made and good, but they're not exceptional.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
36:24
Well, it's kind of like buying a regular house in a good neighborhood. That's essentially what you're doing, exactly.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
36:30
Yeah, that's it.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
36:33
So were there any surprises from everything that you've done, from the city constructing, that you were like I didn't even know this about these certain brands? Or were there any things that you were like? Oh my God, who knew?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
36:45
Absolutely. I'm making a video. Actually, I'm working on it this week. It's like, after spending this much money, what did I learn from all these dissections? So I'm going to make a YouTube video and a few of these things like it changed my perspective. If you look at my first videos, if you talk to me last year, I will be a little bit more judging against these brands. I'll be like it's absolutely not worth it. You know, because I have my own perspective and I'm a little too strong, maybe borderline, judging people who are buying this stuff. That's fair. Now, after looking at all these brands, I see the value. I confirmed it for myself.
37:22
It's not about the material quality or craftsmanship. You know you cannot beat, but I started to see who buys this and why they buy it and how difficult it is to create something like that. My respect to their customers, my respect to the brand, has grown immensely. I definitely understand both sides, even though I'm still keeping my own perspective on things. I'm not a buyer of those brands, but I definitely understand it a lot more. And another learning is most of the luxury brands are really just nothing that special, with exception of a few, you know, hermes. I have huge respect for their leather selections. And you know a little bit extra. Craftsmanship practices, the saddle stitching and all that stuff.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
38:03
But they were. I mean, if you go back to Hermes' history of being the first, I think they were the ones who came up with the first true travel bag. That God, I'm going to get my history next up, so here's this. I apologize, but the founder of Hermes, I believe he, went to like the Ford factory in Detroit and learned that the passability of, from seeing the cars and the seats then gave him the idea that he could use those bags, use the leathers, in a different way, that it could be used in a more travel, sturdy way, and his wife was the one that requested it.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
38:35
Really, I didn't know. This is a great piece of….
Emily Blumenthal
Host
38:38
I have this giant giant. I have this giant giant, and then there was some sort of conflict. I have to go back and look at which silhouette this is and this is gonna kill me because there's a name. But then there's two different brands that fought over who was the creator of this and I'll let you know. But I have this giant dossier of the history of the handbag that I always like to defer to for moments like this, that there's a reason why certain brands are better at it, because historically they've been doing it and have had a means to perfect it, and those people within their factory or their ateliers have been doing it for hundreds of years, because then their child comes through as just like you.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
39:13
Right, right, definitely. There is this generational knowledge transfer. It's incredibly important in leather craft, so definitely our mess deserves a huge respect from material craftsmanship standpoint. Out of all those luxury brands Bottega, with their unique designs and difficult silhouettes I have huge respect. Their leather selections were usually good. But one caveat there is like you can't trust one of these brands at all times for everything they say. Because one of the wallets I got from Bottega I was using it without doubting. They said it's calfskin. I was enjoying it Upon till I cut it up and removed the finish, I realized it was a split covered with a PU top which most people call genuine leather. These days it's a stretch of imagination to call it a calfskin. I was shocked. More normally, they are using exceptional leathers. Why did you do this here? Like it's not worth it? This is a $600 wallet. Just use the calfskin. So those are the interesting learnings I had with this adventure, and I enjoy it every minute.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
40:13
That's so funny. Can I ask you something Just selfishly? I want to know what kind of bag does your wife carry?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
40:19
Oh well, my poor wife now curious. Whatever design I made and it's going really fast these days use her bag Marketing. Yeah, like prototype. No, actually prototype feedback.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
40:31
She's taking you for a test drive. That's what I'm saying.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
40:33
Yes, exactly, test drive. She's a test driver again Because so much of it coming out fast these days she only has like a week to carry one and I'm like, oh, here's another one. And some of the bags I buy for dissection she carries those too and to give me a little bit of feedback for the user standpoint. So it changes a lot, like it changes a lot, but the bags she really loves that I got for her was Bottega bags so far.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
41:00
And there we go.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
41:02
Well, I won't call you Volken, so yeah, no, it's fine Volken there, it's the same.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
41:08
So, Tanner Leatherstein, thank you so very much. I hope you enjoyed this conversation.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
41:13
Oh, I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you so much. It's fun to remember the memories.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
41:18
Listen the roots, I'm not kidding, I'm going to like. Though, when there's a movie made about you, I'm going to be behind it one way or another, because I love a good handbag adventure, and this is definitely one of them. So how can people follow you, learn more and get all this good stuff?
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
41:33
Absolutely. We keep doing short videos on TikTok and Instagram and handle us at tenorlederstine. On both platforms and on YouTube, same handle. At tenorlederstine we do short and longer videos with a little bit more entertainment and information. That's where I do the informative content and my own brand, pegai, is at pegaicom. Everything we create is going to be available there. They can sign up for the newsletter for every week and new designs coming up these days.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
42:04
PEG AI, just in case, and you should call it the newsletter, not the newsletter, just so you know.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
42:10
Yes, newsletter. Yeah, I was actually checking the domain name. If it was available, it would be a cool trademark newsletter it would Well listen.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
42:18
I think the people at the USPTO.gov are sick of me and they have my voice with a line drover Because I call them so much to ask questions. I'm like, hey, so what do you think about this? And they're like we are not here to field your conversational requests about what you think you should do with the business or a brand. I'm like, yeah, but we're already on the phone, like let's talk a little bit. Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure. Looking forward to see what you do next, and we will absolutely be keeping in touch.
Tanner Leatherstein
Guest
42:48
Yes, we will be in touch. It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Emily Blumenthal
Host
42:52
Thanks for listening. Don't forget to rate and review, and follow us on every single platform at Handbag Designer. Thanks so much. See you next time.
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