With a vision for creating a stylish, unique line of finely crafted, premium leather travel products that stand out clearly from modern run-of-the mill bags and briefcases, founder and managing director Marco Feelisch — along with co-founders Georg Wolff and Jena Bautmans — created Buckle & Seam. Sporting a sophisticated yet vintage vibe, Buckle & Seam’s product line includes laptop sleeves, weekenders, duffels, satchels, messenger bags and business briefcases. We recently caught up with Feelisch at Heathrow (LHR) and asked him to share a bit about his company.

Global Traveler: Your goods feel more substantial, with a slightly heavier profile than many leather goods in the luxury market.

Feelisch: Our leather is carefully selected from the northern part of Pakistan. We use our premium cow leather in its most natural form: entire grain — this means all layers of the leather are kept. The majority of the luxury market removes the first layers of skins to avoid showing natural scars. Furthermore, we decided to use a so-called “crazy horse” finishing, which gives our bags a natural look. Due to the tanning and general thickness [of] our leather, it feels heavier and more robust than other goods in the luxury market.

GT: How do you avoid the use of the scary chemicals typically used in the tanning process?

Sierra Messenger Bag

Feelisch: While the majority of the world’s leather is tanned involving harmful chemicals such as Chrome VI, lead and other environmentally damaging chemical substances, we process our leather through a vegetable tanning technique. This process takes longer and requires a specific know-how, but is the most natural way of tanning leather as it does not require harmful chemicals.

GT: Buckle & Seam goods have a cool, vintage vibe to them. Was this a deliberate design decision?

Feelisch: Yes, we were tired of the dull and boring black bags, which you see when roaming around in busy areas. Even now, sitting at Heathrow, I see lots of them. The goal was to create a brand that embodies bags that are superior yet classic, fashionable yet unique, affordable but luxurious. With our vintage vibe and our variety of inside linings, we position ourselves as “the cool ones in the vintage sector.”

GT: Where are you traveling next, and which items from Buckle & Seam will you take with you on that journey?

Feelisch: We will be releasing a new winter season video in which we traveled to the mountains in Austria carrying the Linwood Weekender Bag, Willow Duffle and the Sierra Messenger Bag.

GT: What’s new to the line this year?

Feelisch: After great feedback sessions with our existing customers, we are developing new models of our business bags, will add small accessories for travels and daily life, and will offer a new type of leather in addition to our unique, crazy horse brown finish.