Newly graduated Christina Hamilton is among a new wave of young designers underpinning their designs with maven skill, breathing new life into an old craft. A master of the traditional and quintessentially British craft of saddle making, Christina trained at the Capel Manor Saddlers and has never looked back.
Taking this craft and applying it to handbag and accessory design, she tailored her interests on an accessories foundation and MA in Fashion Artefacts at LCF. Her work is as much about the process of saddle making, as the concept and design of her pieces.
Christina told Vauxhall Fashion Scout: “Saddle masters are very traditional, they only see saddles, but I didn’t want to butcher the craft. I imagine saddle making is a dying art. I thought what is the modern equivalent of the horse? It is of course the bike, especially in London.”
Her pioneering collection includes an extensive range of bags in various shapes and sizes such as saddle-bags that can be attached to bikes and handbags with references to the iconic saddle form, all hand stitched using British dyed leather and suede in rich mahogany browns.
She is most definitely reviving a British craft with revolutionary ideas whilst simultaneously injecting new blood into distinctive British design, and to great success.
Amy Jane Lockwood
VFS Contributor
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