From the Bench: Leathercraft Notes by Heirloom Leathercraft
Notes on craft, leather, and the work behind the work. Written by Beatrice Amblard, Hermes-trained master leather artisan, from her atelier in San Francisco.
From the Bench
Inside Our Leathercraft Studio in San Francisco
15 Clement Street. Fourteen workbenches. Natural light, pricking irons, the quietpull of waxed linen. A look inside the room where the standard is the one Beatrice brought from Hermes.
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How to Tell if Your Leather Accessories are Worth the Price
A practical guide to reading leather the way a sommelier reads wine. Edges, grain,tanning, weight, hardware, stitching. What to check before you pay, and what $500 and$5,000 should actually buy.
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Why Hand-Stitched Leather Lasts
Two stitches that look alike fail very differently. The structural reason a hand-stitchedbag outlasts a factory-stitched one by decades, and what the difference looks like at therepair bench.
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What 48 Days in the Amblard Method Looks Like
A three year French apprenticeship, compressed into 48 days at a workbench on Clement Street. A week-by-week walk through what actually transfers, and what does not.
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What the Acquired Podcast Got Right About Hermès — And What It Means for Our Bench
In February 2024, the Acquired podcast released what became one of its most popular episodes ever: a four-hour history of Hermès. Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal traced the company from its 1837 saddlery origins through six generations of the Hermès-Dumas family to its current standing as a $200 billion company. What made the episode different from the usual luxury-brand coverage was the sourcing. David didn’t just read the annual reports. He sat down with people who had done the work. One of those people was our founder, Béatrice Amblard. From the Faubourg to Clement Street David introduced Bea’s story midway through the episode, during a section on Jean-Louis Dumas and the artisan culture he protected from management consultants who wanted Hermès to outsource production like Gucci. Bea was hired as an artisan at Hermès Paris at the start of Jean-Louis’s tenure. She worked in the atelier at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the most storied address in luxury. When Jean-Louis’s son Pierre-Alexis, now Hermès’s artistic director, came to train as a teenager, he sat next to Bea at the bench. When Hermès opened its San Francisco store, Bea moved to the West Coast. Not to sell. To repair. She was the sole artisan responsible for every repair on the West Coast of North America. One person in New York handled the East Coast. That was it. They came from the Faubourg, and a few of these people went around the world. David asked Bea what made Hermès special as a place to work. Her answer was unequivocal: when she was training and decided she wanted to go into this field, Hermès was the greatest company anyone could hope to work for. It wasn’t even close. He then asked why hand craftsmanship matters to the customer. Her answer has stayed with us: a product made by hand has a soul. A product made on an assembly line does not. Jean-Louis Dumas himself knew every artisan by name. When Bea was new, he ran into her in the elevator at the Faubourg and said, “You’re Béatrice Amblard. Welcome to Hermès.” When she eventually left in 1997 to start her own shop, he called her personally, shocked. Nobody ever leaves. Later, when the San Francisco Chronicle profiled her, Jean-Louis found the article in France, cut it out, and mailed it to her with a handwritten note of congratulations. Why This Matters for Heirloom Ben Gilbert put it plainly: if you want something saddle-stitched in the traditional way, your options outside Hermès number in the dozens. Hermès employs 7,000 artisans. The independent makers doing this work worldwide might number 1,000 or 2,000. He named April in Paris, Bea’s former shop, as one of only a handful of makers doing Hermès-caliber work independently. That’s the lineage Heirloom Leathercraft carries forward. The saddle stitch that Ben described in the episode, the one where you can barely see the hole, where the thread seems to vanish into the leather, is the same stitch we teach in every class and use on every piece that leaves our bench. It’s not decorative. It’s structural. Two needles, one thread, each stitch locked independently so if one breaks, the rest hold. Hermès has proven that hand craftsmanship doesn’t just survive at scale. It’s the reason for the scale. Jean-Louis Dumas understood this. Bea understood it when she trained at the Faubourg. And it’s what we practice every day at Heirloom. The Tradition Continues Bea now teaches the next generation of artisans at Heirloom Leathercraft in San Francisco. The same techniques. The same standards. The same insistence that every piece have a soul. If you want to learn from someone who sat at the bench in the most famous atelier in the world, join one of our classes. If you want to see the work, visit the shop. Listen to the full episode: Acquired — Hermès: The Complete History and Strategy
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From Hermès Paris to Clement Street
Béatrice Amblard did not set out to open a leathercraft school. She set out to make things that would last. The school came later, once she realized the techniques she carried were disappearing. Her path started in Paris. She trained at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, the institution that has shaped French artisanship for over a century. From there, she entered Hermès, where she spent years working in the leather atelier, learning the methods that have defined the maison since 1837. What Hermès Teaches Working at Hermès is not like working at a factory that happens to produce luxury goods. The atelier operates on a principle that most modern manufacturing has abandoned: one artisan, one object, start to finish. A single craftsperson cuts, stitches, and assembles an entire bag. Their initials go inside. If that bag comes back for repair in twenty years, it goes back to the same person. This method is slow. It is also the reason Hermès leather goods hold their value, sometimes appreciating, over decades. The technique is the product. Béatrice internalized this completely. Not just the hand skills, but the philosophy beneath them: that time spent on craft is not a cost to be minimized. It is the thing itself. From Paris to San Francisco Béatrice moved to San Francisco and in 1998 opened April in Paris, a boutique at 15 Clement Street in the Inner Richmond. She made and sold leather goods, custom pieces, and accessories using the same methods she learned in Paris. Every item was hand-cut, hand-stitched with the saddle stitch, and finished to the standard she trained under. Customers noticed. Not just the quality of the objects, but the work itself. They watched her at the bench and asked if they could learn. The requests kept coming. Eventually, Béatrice said yes. How a Studio Became a School The first classes were informal. A few students at the workbench, learning to cut leather and pull a saddle stitch. Béatrice taught the way she had learned: no shortcuts, no simplifications. She expected precision from the first session. Students responded to this. Not despite the rigor, but because of it. Many had never worked with their hands in any serious way. The experience of producing something tangible, something that would last, using methods unchanged for two centuries, proved to be something people were hungry for. Heirloom Leathercraft grew from there. The curriculum formalized into a structured progression: workshops for newcomers, a four-level Core Program that takes students from first cuts to constructing structured bags, and a 12-Week Artisan Training Program for those pursuing mastery. What Béatrice Brought With Her The techniques taught at Heirloom are not adapted or modernized versions of traditional methods. They are the methods themselves. The saddle stitch. Hand-cutting with precision knives. Edge finishing by hand. Pattern making that accounts for the grain and character of each hide. Béatrice also brought the standard. At Hermès, there is no acceptable margin of error on visible stitching. Edges are finished until they feel like glass. Thread tension must be consistent across every stitch of a seam that might run eighteen inches. These are not aspirational benchmarks at Heirloom. They are the baseline. Her daughter Amélie now teaches alongside her, carrying the same methods into the next generation. Why It Matters Now We live in an era of disposable goods marketed as premium. The distinction between actual craft and the appearance of craft has never been harder to see, and never been more important to understand. What Béatrice brought from Paris to Clement Street is not just a set of techniques. It is a standard of care that most people have never encountered. When a student sits at the bench and learns to saddle stitch for the first time, they are not learning a hobby. They are experiencing what it means to make something properly. That experience changes how you see everything you own, everything you buy, and everything you choose to keep. Visit the Studio Heirloom Leathercraft is located inside April in Paris at 15 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94118. Classes and workshops run weekly. No prior experience is required for workshops ($175) or Level 1: Foundations ($5,000). Book at heirloomleathercraft.com.
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