You've Seen Byredo's Candles. But Not Byredo's Antelope Leather Handbags
Byredo’s not content to only produce the kinds of upscale soaps found in upmarket restaurants and perfumes famous for emotionally charged scents. The luxury beauty label has bigger aspirations.
Through Byproduct, its experimental diffusion line, Byredo has created everything from $2,590 scented lamps to punk-ish leather jackets to tea blended in France from traceable natural ingredients. And, now, Byredo Byproduct’s versatile output also includes a collection of antelope leather goods.
The new Byredo Karoo Collection, comprising various colors of a capacious bag and Western-style belt, is named after South Africa’s vast Karoo desert from which its supple nubuck leather is sourced. There, amongst vast plains of sand and scrub, you find the greater kudu antelope, whose skin is distinctly marked by scars and a pebbled texture.
Production of Kudu leather is limited since it's a result of the strict government-mandated culling of wild kudu antelopes to control overpopulation. From this hard-to-find prized leather comes Byproduct’s big-buckled Karoo belts and Karoo bag, a large unstructured shopper with a semi-precious stone hanging from a hand-stitched keychain. Every natural scratch and mark is visible, making each unique.
All the new Byproduct goods are feats of leathermaking only made possible by artisans in Tuscany, Italy’s leathermaking hub, who produce every item by hand. This means a level of craft typical of a luxury label’s high-end handbags except it’s coming from Byredo, the Scandinavian creator of minimalistic candles.
But that’s the beauty of Byredo Byproduct, which specializes in products you wouldn’t typically expect from a perfumery. Byproduct’s been at it since 2019, first through skate-style sneakers and made-to-measure suits, but more recently through handcrafted leather goods like petite handbags that utilize a centuries-old Indian stitching technique and Italian-made leather vests with handstitched internal quilting.
And it's all just as luxe and just as covetable as Byredo's best-selling scents. Who says a beauty brand can't do it all?
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