Dezeen Magazine

Hunters Bend by Tove Emilsson

Hunters Bend by Tove Emilsson

These wallets and spectacle cases are each made of a single piece of leather that's been folded into shape then hardened in boiling water.

Hunters Bend by Tove Emilsson

Called Hunters Bend, the collection was created by London designer Tove Emilsson while studying at HDK School of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Hunters Bend by Tove Emilsson

Boiled leather, or cuir bouilli, can be moulded while still wet but becomes permanently tough and rigid once dry.

Hunters Bend by Tove Emilsson

It was used to make armour in medieval times and more recently by London designer Simon Hasan, who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2008 with a series of vases and stools made of boiled leather.

Hunters Bend by Tove Emilsson

Two years later Tortie Hoare was awarded New Designer of the Year for her range of boiled leather furniture.

Here are some more details from Emilsson:


Hunters Bend
Tove Emilsson, 2011

The Hunter’s Bend project is about how our personal possessions affect our perceived identity and in what way the value of an object may increase with the relationship that is built up towards the user.

I have looked upon traces of time as an extension of an existing object.

The outcome is a series of leather cases made out of one piece of folded leather, hardened and locked within itself.

The history contained in leather, as a living material has been an important part of the project as well as how its features are used in the making and then allowing the product to change with use.