The Leather

After working with different types of leather, the Pueblo article has proven to be the perfect choice for the Classic Series.

Made in Tuscany, Italy, by the tannery Badalassi Carlo, this full grain vegetable tanned leather is known for its unique rugged finish and quick "Patina", meaning it gets darker, smoother and shinier with use.

At 1.2/1.4 (mm), Pueblo leather has the right amount of firmness and density to make a wide variety of leather goods that look better with age.

For the Limited Series, a wider variety of leather is used for more diverse types of finishings, including interesting combinations of leather sourced from Italy and/or other famous tanneries.

 

The Maker

After completing a Bachelor's degree in Product Design at ALBA (Beirut) and a Master's degree in Industrial Design at SPD (Milan-Italy), I returned home in 2019 to face a collapsing Lebanon.

Due to the lack of career openings, I took the initiative to learn new skills in between freelance jobs and decided to make myself a leather tobacco pouch. The next few pouches I offered to friends, and soon enough random people became interested.

I had designed a product and was certain that with my skills, I could optimize it and go further by creating a brand, a page, a website and let grooverhide be my full-time job.

So far, I have valued this journey since there is room to learn and improve even though leather crafting was not initially my main field of interest. This artistry has a rich history that makes me eager to understand all of its aspects even further.

I have been tackling this craft with a product design approach, going through all the steps: Research and analyze, brainstorm and ideate, design, prototype, test and repeat to finally come up with simple and elegant products that are functional and capable of carrying the story of the person using them because every spot, dent or scratch is part of that person's journey.  

 

                          

George Saghbini