Project Overview

The Herdwick has a 1,000-year heritage and worthy reputation as Britain’s hardiest mountain sheep. Reared primarily for it’s specialty meat, the breed has EU protected food name status and appears on menus of many of the country’s best restaurants. However the fleece is considered almost worthless and is sometimes burned. Over four years and nine weave trials this low value fleece was transformed into a high quality cloth. Herdwyck No.10 is a pure wool, it’s colour and texture derived from the distinctive Herdwick fleece. It is spun, woven and finished entirely in the British Isles.

Organisation

Cherchbi

Project Brief

Our main design principle is intuitive functionality. Our modern designs are easy to use and aesthetically correct. Design details are pared down to their essence ensuring the qualities inherent in our natural materials are visible.

The largest in the Squires family. Identical to it's smaller brethren in terms of design - perfect length handles allow the bag to be carried by hand or on the shoulder, corner tabs can be left open to increase internal capacity - but think long-weekend or even longer.

Project Innovation/Need

Our bags are produced in two workshops in the English west country, an area renowned for its heritage in leather goods. We employ a robust construction style that references aspects of English saddlery and equestrian leatherwork techniques.

CHERCHBI bags are bench-made, a method ideally suited to small-scale, batch production. The leather and textile parts are cut on a press with shaped knives. All other component materials are prepared and each bag is skilfully assembled stage by stage by one person at a machine and bench.

Sustainability

Herdwyck No.10 tweed is made from 100% pure wool all of which is spun, woven and finished within the British Isles. The colour and texture of the finished cloth is derived from the distinctive Herdwick fleece. The brittle white fibres visible in the tweed are kemp fibres which occur naturally in the Herdwick fleece. Spinning is slowed down to give the yarn greater strength, this is then densely woven and finally bonded with natural rubber to cotton lining. The result is a unique, naturally robust, waterproof woollen tweed. Although the natural rubber creates an impermeable layer, making the tweed waterproof, the surface tweed itself will absorb liquids.

All CHERCHBI leathers are developed for us with the help of Joseph Clayton of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, who have been tanning leather since 1840. Our leathers originate from Northern Irish cow hide and are pit-tanned using vegetable tannins. This is an ancient process, essentially unchanged for thousands of years. Leather is a natural raw material with many great qualities, not least the individual marks, colour, lines and creases. These little inconsistencies differentiate each hide and make each leather item unique.