40 under 40: Meet Oliver Foulds

Every Monday, we will be celebrating one of our 40 under 40 makers.

This week we are getting to know Oliver Foulds, a self taught craftsman from Derbyshire with a background in Brittish Wildlife. Let's get to know him better with a Q&A session.

Tell us a bit about what you do?

I’m a largely self-taught craftsman from Derbyshire, working exclusively with full grain, vegetable-tanned leather and solid brass hardware. The focus of my work is to provide an alternative to cheap, mass-produced leather goods and champion traditional materials over unsustainable plastics.

How did you get into making leather goods?

It all began with one life-changing day! My background is in British wildlife conservation and as I learnt about our land and its plants and animals I became more and more interested in the old, sustainable crafts and traditional skills that shaped this land. I also grew up surrounded by expertly crafted musical instruments because of my family’s music business, and so this all led to me wanting to develop my own crafting skills and actually make something myself. After playing around with wood carving, I decided to try a day’s introduction to leatherwork with master leathersmith Nigel Armitage. That was it, I was hooked.

What is your favourite product to make?

This is a hard question to answer! Some of the most satisfying work I’ve done is to work closely with a customer to design and build a wallet that is exactly the right size, shape, feel and look for them. I enjoy making something so personal and fit for purpose that will last for decades. I also really enjoy making a high end bespoke guitar strap because I get to use lots of amazing leather and spend hours making a beautiful strap that’s far stronger than it needs to be…

What do you love most about working with leather?

The variety of different leathers is vast but I am very picky about the kind I like. Leather for me needs to be the old style, vegetable-tanned, rich smelling, rugged hides that proudly show every little mark and wrinkle of the skin. I believe if you’re using the best leather then you don’t need to overcomplicate your designs as the raw beauty of the material itself should take centre stage. I love that every single little scrap of this kind of leather is totally unique and this natural randomness can be carefully tamed into something you can keep and use for the rest of your life.

What are your next goals?

I’ve got a book of scribbled designs that I’ve been looking forward to working on when I get the chance! I have some ideas for a few items in a slightly different style to my main products, incorporating some other traditional hand-worked materials.

What advice would you give to someone who's thinking about becoming a leather worker or who has just started out?

Leatherwork uses lots of skills with a lot of different tools and so it can be a bit daunting to take on as a complete beginner. There’s a ton of information online which is hugely useful but if you ever get the chance to learn the core skills from an experienced leather worker, even for one day, it will help you start things off in the right direction.
I would also say to remember to step back every now and then and appreciate how far you’ve come. Remember why you’re doing it.

What does it mean to you to be included in the 40 under 40 list?

I still can’t quite believe I’m on this list to be honest! It was a fantastic surprise to hear I’d been selected and I’m very proud to be included alongside these talented craftspeople.

How important do you think it is to keep traditional techniques alive in the modern world?

I can go on and on about this forever but I’m instead going to keep it fairly brief. Traditional techniques like those passed on by leatherworkers have taken countless years of gruelling hard work to develop, adapt and perfect since the very beginning of the craft. It took centuries to hone these practices to where they are today but they could all be lost in a single lifetime if no one passed them on. We can’t let such a large part of our heritage disappear, not when these skills can still produce work that surpasses anything mass-produced on modern machines.

What have you done to keep relevant in a digital age?

Without social media, many craftspeople would really struggle to get their work seen and wouldn’t be able to learn much about the work of others in their craft. I use social media to display my work, communicate my values and see what kind of things are being made all over the world.

What is the biggest challenge to becoming successful in your discipline?

 Now, this depends on what we mean by success! Everyone will have their own goals in mind, but I suppose I like to measure my success in how far I judge my skills to have progressed and the standard of product I’m capable of making. One of the main obstacles is simply that this is a traditional craft, with no shortcuts and no fast-tracking. To get good at it, you have to put lots and lots of hours in and this is hard at times. For many there also needs to be a money-making side to all of this as well and one big challenge here can be having the courage to charge a fair price for your products. Handcrafted leather goods are not cheap, and nor should they be. Obviously there are many challenges to making any business profitable and making a slow traditional craft profitable in a modern world is especially difficult. Throw in a determination to be environmentally sustainable, a near obsession with minimising waste and a refusal to use anything less than the best materials and you are fighting a hard fight!


For more information, please visit www.oliverfoulds.com
To join this network of great makers, please follow Oliver's Instagram page HERE