GEAR | Agnes Baddoo Leathergoods

My dad has carried the same leather brief case since the early 1980s, it's full of stains and scuffs and water marks that just add to its veteran patina. The imperfections have yielded the perfect briefcase and an irreplaceable part of his style. Los Angeles-based stylist, author, and designer Agnes Baddoo has a similar story. She inherited her mother's small leather tote bag that has been worn to perfection over 40 years. As it started to wear beyond repair she didn't know where to turn to replace it.

Like many designers, Agnes started creating something she wanted for herself that couldn't be found anywhere else. So Agnes, who also makes the very popular Everyw'air room sprays, used her mother's bag as a blueprint and launched her eponymous leather label. The first iteration is a replica of her mother's bag called Sac 1 ($300), it's carried online at Priscilla Woolworth and will be available soon through Agnes' site as well.

I saw Agnes' leather bags for the first time at the last Echo Park Craft Fair where I watched both men and women fawning over them. The next time I saw one it was on the arm of shoe designer Beatrice Valenzuela in the women's room at The Arclight Movie Theater. In other words, these bags are about to blow up. In the near future there will be an Agnes Baddoo key wallet, a canvas-leather combination of the Sac 1, buffalo leather versions in brown and black, as well as the much larger Sac 2 (see below).

I love these bags so much and can't want to see mine age and morph over months, years, and decades into that buttery irreplacable item that becomes part of my style identity.