L'Atelier D'Akinra presentation
Since 2006
It was in 2006 that I started working with leather for the first time.
At the time, it was simply a matter of modifying pre-existing accessories to match a costume.
In 2008, during my first life-size role-playing games, I bought my first skin to make my own accessories from scratch.
It was the start of a great adventure.
With a view to creating increasingly elaborate and aesthetic costumes, I explore the web and markets to learn leatherworking techniques.
After a few months of testing the various methods I had observed, I chose one of them and started working on my hand daily.
After two years of hard work and dozens of square meters of leather, the day came when I wanted to turn my passion into more than a hobby: a job.
In 2011, I opened "l'atelier d'Akinra", a name already used for my personal creations.
This adventure gave a new scope to my work: I was able to acquire new tools and built others according to my needs.
Since then, I've been visiting medieval markets and fairy or role-playing festivals about twenty times a year.
It was in the autumn of 2014 that my online shop, where I offer my leather creations for sale, saw the light of day.
It's the culmination of my years of self-taught leatherwork apprenticeship.
A certain routine in the events I attend every year allows me to stabilize the business and highlights the need for a new, larger and better-equipped workshop. A few months of work allowed me to bring it out of the ground.
The pandemic brings business to a standstill for a second year running. I take advantage of this time to learn 3D drawing and CNC programming: I can finally make my own stamps. It was a turning point in the aesthetics of my pieces.
It's time to reopen an online store offering my new creations, which have evolved considerably over the last few years, on a new, more modern platform.
Workshop Operation
This is a workshop, where every leather product is made with care, entirely by hand and on demand.
Each piece is therefore unique, because no leather item is exactly the same as its predecessor, even if the model may be the same, the final result is always a little different.
As a lover of hand tools and old mechanics, the only machine in the workshop is a hydraulic press, which saves the health of my hands and wrists. All the other tools are hand-pulled mechanical tools, some of which are over 100 years old!
Each leather item is made to order (it is impossible for me to have a copy of every variation in stock), and there is a manufacturing delay before any order is dispatched.
As I am not a resale boutique, each of my leather creations goes through a series of steps necessary for their production
All my products (unless otherwise stated) are cut from vegetable leather.
This does not mean plant-based leather; by definition, leather is animal skin tanned to make it rot-proof.
Vegetable leather refers to a particular method that has been used for millennia: skins are successively soaked in baths containing tannins from different tree barks.
This is one of the most environmentally-friendly methods.
This particular leather can then be worked in a variety of ways, giving all the effects you'll discover.
The essence of the Atelier
Atisanal production
As a lover of hand tools and old mechanics, the only machine in the workshop is a hydraulic press, which saves the health of my hands and wrists. All the other tools are hand-pulled mechanical tools, some of which are over 100 years old !
Cooperation between craftsmen
I only work in leather. All other pieces come from specialist craftsmen: horns, jewelry, wooden or ceramic pieces... I believe that we each have our own job to do, and for me, it's an immense pleasure, as well as an infinite source of creativity, to work with other craftsmen to develop unique products.
"LARP Like" stamped
I'm a LARP player turned craftsman, not a craftsman who got into LARP out of interest. I take part in several events per year (they will also be indicated in the events calendar) and all my creations are designed for use in LARP. Of course, this doesn't mean they can't be used in everyday life.