concept appeals to our customers,’ says Cassie Smart,
head of womenswear at MatchesFashion.com. ‘They
are interested in the provenance of the collection.’
The range now includes tote, necklace, shoulder and
belt bags that come in pebbled calf leather, or calf
leather embossed and hand-painted in Italy to look
like crocodile and snake skin.
The gold-plated frames that are a signature of Lutz
Morris bags are a German speciality, and the company
Lutz found to make them has been operating since
1860 in Offenbach, a small town near Frankfurt known
for its leather manufacturing tradition. Excited by
the level of artisanship so close at hand, Lutz decided
to harness other German resources, too. ‘I wanted
to create something responsible,’ she says.
Her other finds include a tannery just outside
Düsseldorf, and a welding shop in the Black Forest
that hand-solders each link of the gold-plated brass
bag straps to create a seamless chain. The brand’s
packaging is produced next to the Wuppertal factory
and printed in her hometown, Berlin.
The bags are hand-assembled in a 45-step process.
Every worker is trained to master all the steps, from
pattern-making to glueing and stitching. Only seven
such leather businesses are left in the area. Many ofthem, still second- or third-generation family-owned,
have struggled to compete with less-expensive
production outside of Europe. Fifty years ago, there
were more than 700 leather factories in West Germany,
but only 49 of these have survived. ‘Supporting
artisans is something I have always done, but previously
it was artisans in Swaziland, in Kabul or in Uruguay,’
recalls Lutz. ‘I never thought artisans in Germany
needed support.’
Lutz tries to limit waste by saving and reworking
leather scraps left in the manufacturing process
(for her autumn collection she has reworked the leather
using an intarsia technique), and to minimise the brand’s
carbon footprint by sourcing every component as close
as possible to its factories. Having grown up in Stuttgart
with a father who was an architect and built almost
all his own furniture, she dismisses disposable trends.
‘There is an integrity behind her products,’ says Smart.
‘The collection started off with the original design
and developed from that. It’s timeless and translates
across the seasons.’
With her ingenuity and undimmed energy, and
the expertise of the German artisans she has recruited,
Lutz has created a modern classic. ∂
lutzmorris.comCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT,
‘ERWIN’ BAG IN JADE CROCO,
£625; ‘NORMAN’ BAG, AS
BEFORE, IN COGNAC CROCO,
AND (IN LUTZ’S HAND)
A ROLL OF THE EMBOSSED,
HAND-PAINTED CALF LEATHER
USED FOR THE BAGS; 24CT
GOLD-PLATED STAINLESS
STEEL HANDBAG FRAMES,
A SIGNATURE OF THE BRAND‘Supporting artisans is something
I’ve always done, but I never thought
German artisans needed support’
130 ∑
Design