arden + james

|Chadds Ford Spotlight| arden + james goods feature artist’s hands, fine materials

For Chadds Ford business owner, it’s all about the handbags

By Natalie Smith Contributing Writer

The perfect handbag should be a combination of comfort, functionality and chic, and for its thousands of customers and social media followers, nothing less than an arden + james bag will do.

Designed and made by the one-woman creative dynamo Briana “Bri” Brant, the bags and accessories bearing her company’s name are all crafted in a workshop in her Chadds Ford home.

“I work in my house and it’s a tiny little bedroom upstairs. People would not even believe how I do everything in that room, but it works,” Brant said. The name of the business started in 2006 as a nod to the yearly Arden, Del. fair (“we went to the fair a lot when I was a kid and I always thought it was just the most magical place”) and the name her husband and oldest son share.

The totes, pouches and carry-alls she creates are generally made out of leather or linen. Some are produced in waxed fabric, such as canvas and denim. She’ll often enhance the pieces with paint or other embellishments. These handmade, crafted items - including small leather goods - range in price from about $20 to $400, the higher price being for “the hugest bag, with the most pockets and in the fanciest leather.”

Brant talked about working with her most popular material.

“Everything [starts with] a full hide of leather. I buy it from the tannery and then I’ll cut it. I just like coloring it, painting it, dyeing it, or whatever. I start out with a 40-square-foot hide, and then I cut the big pieces out for the carry-alls and totes and then the hide gets smaller. I kind of work my way down. I always have pieces that are really small for making card holders and wallets, and then I create key chains with the really small pieces.

“Then I give the scraps to schools, who use them in art classes. I never waste anything; it’s bad karma to do so. I’ve learned to be really efficient

All photos courtesy Double S Media

arden + james owner/maker Bri Brant, with some of her creations at the company’s store in Chadds Ford.

with my materials. With every bag you get a key ring with the logo on it.”

Her other materials are also specially ordered.

“The wax canvas is actually from New Jersey and the company that makes it is amazing. The canvas, it’s like for army tents. It’s a family business and they’ve been doing it for ... I don’t even know … 100 years and I actually ordered direct from the woman who owns the business and she gives me all

This tag identifies every item as an arden + james original.

Bags, necklaces and accessories are among the arden + james articles for sale at the retail location in Chadds Ford. All of the arden + james items for sale, including this bag with handwoven details, are crafted by the firm’s owner/maker Bri Brant.

the cool things. Like a waxed denim, a real Levi’s waxed denim, which is so cool.

“The linen I order from Belarus, directly from a woman that works at the mill. It’s kind of crazy, but I found her.

“That’s how I started making bags, because I found this linen and I just fell in love with it. I thought, ‘I have to make bags out of this,’ and then I just started doing leather straps and then started doing leather. But it’s funny; you just really need to get into the materials and then you just keep going”

Earning a degree in industrial design from the then-Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science, Brant was continuing on the artistic road she first encountered as a girl growing up in Chadds Ford.

“When I was a kid, we used to travel around to different plantations where people would live and make furniture. Both of my parents really liked furniture -- my dad also makes furniture -- so when I began to study furnituremaking in college, I realized that the school’s program was designing plastic, mass-produced items like a baby’s car seat and dealing with ergonomics. I realized that the work that I wanted to make was going to take me someplace

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else.” An apprenticeship with a porcelain-ornament maker taught her the ins-and-outs of the craft show world.

“I went to really awesome craft shows like the one in Waterford, Va. The people at those shows were masters of their crafts, and I learned about going to shows and how you sell your stock. I basically just followed them around for a couple years and worked in their basement,” Brant said.

After a 10-year career working in the marketing department for Wawa, Inc., Brant and her husband moved to Colorado, where she took a job as a marketing agent for a small honey company. Her creative side, however, began to grow, so she started making beeswax candles and selling them at farmers markets which had an added benefit. “They’re small businesses, so I just learned the business side of small business, versus the art stuff,” she said.

Returning home, heartbreaking news got her started on her new path.

“My mom got cancer while we were gone and she always wanted me to be an artist,” Brant said. “I told my mother that I was never going to be an artist, and that I was going to work at Wawa.

“So when she passed away -- it’s the weirdest thing -- I began to have this compulsion to make bags. I can’t explain it. But I know it’s her. She’s doing it, so I can’t really control it.”

She finds the work very satisfying and not too far off from what she initially studied.

Bri Brant, maker of all arden + james products, employs a couple of the tools of her trade.

“It’s like furniture, but much more manageable, where I can use all of the same materials like leather and copper rivets, so that it has some aspects of furniture. “I feel like it was really needed because women’s bags are not functional for the most part and .they don’t last,” she said. “It just makes me mad. It’s not fair. Women need to design women’s bags and it needs to be like a tool bag.”

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It’s difficult to miss the entrance to the arden + james retail location – a multi-colored “horse” donated by Chadds Ford Elementary School welcomes all.

Her best-selling bag?

“The Arden tote, which is a standard size. It works for everybody,” Brant said. “The straps are pretty long, so it’s easy to wear; the pocket’s big. The wallets that I make are all made to fit in [the tote], like a set of components. And I give everyone a key ring. This is for [my] key hooks or any kind of key hook that you have, so your keys are up here not in the bottom of your bag, because that’s the worst.

“I believe that women’s products should be better-tailored to fit the needs of the modern woman,” she added. “I see many women struggling with these items. Life is hard when you don’t have a .functional bag, and I think people underestimate how important it is.

“[The Arden tote] is like a tool bag. You could throw that in your garage and hang it up and it looks pretty, but you could beat it up for years and it would still look good. So that’s what’s cool. Like the wax element materials. You could literally leave them outside - they’re weatherproof. And I have two boys, so I can’t have anything that doesn’t last.”

Brant used to travel with her bags to various craft and art shows, bringing along sons James, 10 and Ethan, 8. “But I don’t really do shows anymore. I miss so much time when I could be making bags. I don’t go anywhere! I’m obsessed with making bags all the time,” she said, smiling.

Arden + james has a bricks-and-mortar location in the Chadds Ford Barn Shops, sharing space with Barbara Moore Fine Art. The Barn Shops, a charming collection of eight community-based businesses, is owned and managed by Brant and family members. Locally, Brant’s wares are also available at worKS in Kennett Square; Longwood Gardens; and Brandywine River Museum. For those who want a semicustom bag, the arden + james website allows the purchaser to choose color, type of handle and type and number of pockets or other additions. “I made the basic [Arden tote] for Urban Outfitters ten years ago. And since then, I just added things like custom details. You can have me do a painting; give me three colors that you like and I’ll do a painting for you,” she said. “Or the botanical etching like I did

for Longwood Gardens, They’ll have an exclusive botanical etching and we’ll sell that for a year. And then it’s my design again and I can sell it and say it was for Longwood Gardens, which everybody loves.

“Everything’s copper riveted. I don’t use glue. I only use copper. Then you can add a tassel. You can choose a rolled stitch strap or a flat strap. It’s still my design but you choose the options.”

The carry-all is wider and taller than the tote. “This was like a really popular size for young people - they really liked the look. Just the perfect size; a lot of people get this one for work, for their laptop.”

Brant’s regular customers know all about customizing their choices, which takes Brant one to two weeks to complete.

“My customers are so excited and happy, waiting for the next thing and they have every style, you know, because one fits in the other. When I say I have something coming out, they are excited and they want it and it’s just cool! They tell their friends and they buy them for their sisters and their moms.

“My customers are really loyal and they like to keep it

A selection of wallets are among the items for sale at the arden + james store in Chadds Ford.

local. It almost seems like everyone in Kennett and Chadds Ford buys from me.”

As for the arden + james brand, Brant said she’d like people to know, “I’m a one-woman business and I make everything, one at a time. And most of what I [earn] goes back into the Barn Shops and community arts projects.”

For more information: www.ardenandjames.com Natalie Smith may be contacted at natalie@DoubleSMedia. com