This leather artisan who grew up on St John's Island wants you to slow down and design a bespoke bag with her

If you want an instantly recognisable luxury bag that screams affluence, Forest Child is not for you. If you want a cheap knock-off inspired by the latest runway trends, Forest Child is not for you too.

At Forest Child, a local artisan leather goods company, you will not find loud monogrammed prints or clasps – the only name you might find on your handbag, satchel or wallet is your own.

Don’t expect your orders to arrive the next day or week either. Every leather item is made to order, customised or bespoke, and takes about a month to craft.

“Customising things is not part of the Singapore culture, unlike in Japan or Italy,” pointed out Addynna Azlinor, founder of Forest Child. So when people do, there is usually an interesting reason behind it.

Some do it out of habit or nostalgia. “For example, they have been using a wallet for many years and are so used to its design that it’s part of them now. Now that it is worn with age, they are frustrated they cannot find the same one off the shelf anymore,” she explained.

Some have distinct needs – they want a specific compartment of a specific size for something they carry, such as a particular brand of wet tissue; or a specific number of card slots and compartments in a certain colour for fengshui reasons, she added.

The most compelling stories, however, are the emotional ones.

“Recently, a guy came to customise a bag for his wife because they had just lost their beloved husky,” she said.

Sobbing, the man told Addynna that the bag was meant to symbolise the bond his wife and dog had, a “parting gift” from their husky, to tell her not to grieve but carry the wonderful moments they had together wherever she goes, literally.

“The outside of the bag was in her favourite colours – orange and green. The inside of the bag incorporated the white-and-black colours of the dog’s coat, the date he was born, and the date he passed on,” Addynna added.

HER JOURNEY AS A LEATHER CRAFTSMAN

Stories like these are why the 38-year-old leathercrafter gladly works 10- to 12-hour days.

“It is the connection I make with people. Sometimes, during a one-hour consultation, they will share their whole life story,” she smiled.

Forest Child offers cardholders, wallets and other leather goods on their website where customers can customise the colour, thread and debossing details starting from S$22 for a key tag to S$294 for a bi-fold wallet with coin pouch.

However, most customers come for her bespoke goods, which Addynna sketches out after a consultation, creates a paper mock-up template and crafts to the customer’s specifications. This costs upwards of S$500.

One wine connoisseur asked her to make a large wine bag with detachable padded leather compartments to fit four wine glasses, a wine bottle and a decanter. The price tag: Around S$2,000.

Sometimes, she also works on corporate orders for menu covers, placemats, coasters and aprons. One of her biggest bulk orders was for CUT by Wolfgang Puck where she made 900 placemats for the Michelin-starred steak restaurant.

In addition, Addynna also offers repair services such as strap replacements for bags. If a bag is too severely damaged, she can also upcycle it, turning it into a smaller one or into other accessories for S$70 onwards.

A biomedical science polytechnic graduate who dropped out of university because she could not afford the fees, Adanna taught herself the art of leathercrafting.

In 2012, while she was working at a friend’s cafe, she made fashion jewellery as a side hustle. When friends in leathercrafting bequeathed her scrap leather pieces, she incorporated them into her designs for sale.

She made herself a leather pen sleeve for taking orders at the cafe after a one-hour crash course from a friend, and later, a bag. Along the way, she fell in love with leather.

A year later, Addynna launched Forest Child, selling at art markets and pop-up booths, before opening her shop in Bali Lane in 2014, and an online store in 2018. She has since moved to Wcega Tower at Bukit Batok Crescent, and is open by appointment only.

REDEFINING LUXURY

Each product at Forest Child is handmade with high-quality vegetable-tanned leather from Tuscany, Italy, with a focus on good stitching.

“The beauty of handmade goods is that there will always be imperfection. You can see blemishes, insect bites, stretch marks of the animals on the natural full-grained skin that we use. This adds to its uniqueness and character,” Addynna said.

She  believes in the value of small-scale production: “When you hand-make something in small batches, there is usually more focus and dedication put into it, and hence the quality is usually better and it will last you for a long time.”

Bespoke handmade products are also more luxurious, Addynna added.

“Some people think luxury is status, and status is equivalent to having a high fashion brand logo on something you carry. But how is something luxurious if 10 people in the room have it? How does that make you different?” she mused.

“Personally, I think luxury is … owning something unique. The quality of the product should speak for itself. And the product should reflect the person that you are, not the brand.”

“When you order something from Forest Child, it is made for you the way you want it, in the colours you want. And it has your name on it. How special is that?” she added.

Addynna makes no apologies that her products take a month to make.

“We had fast fashion before. Now, we have ultra-fast fashion. We want things fast and then throw them away quickly. As a result, we grow to be impatient people.

“Because we are impatient, we don’t live in the present. At Forest Child, we want to slow things down in a sense, and say, ‘Hey, let’s live in the moment, enjoy the air now’,” she said.

RECLAIMING THE SLOW LIFE

Growing up, Addynna’s family was among the last six families living on St John’s Island in the ’80s and ’90s where her grandparents were caretakers of the island, and this greatly shaped her ethos.

“There were no shops there. We had nature, the sun, sea and animals such as cats, rabbits, goats, chickens, a monkey and a baby hawk that one of our relatives saved when it fell from its nest,” she laughed.

It is this love for animals that prompted Addynna to switch to leather that comes from meat by-products, which would otherwise end up in landfills. “I would hate to know that an animal was killed just for the skin,” she said.

Her formative years on St John’s Island with her beloved late grandfather also gave her a love for crafting.

“My late grandfather made a lot of things with whatever material was available around him – bird cages, a swing for me, a pushcart…. As a kid, this sparked my interest in making things with my own hands,” she said.

Those were happy days. “We left when I was 13 when my grandparents retired. Leaving the island was probably the saddest day of my life,” she said.

Only memories remain now. In 2015, her beloved grandfather passed away at the age of 82, and a few years ago, her old family house on St John’s was demolished.

“Hunting for a sea conch along the seashore and water breaker, and enjoying it after boiling it with seawater, lemongrass and ginger; following my grandfather out on a sampan to the open sea to fish… these will always remain my core memories,” she said.

Mourning a moment lost in time, she said: “Though Forest Child is ultimately a business, it has helped me reclaim the sense of being close to nature and finding a slow pace of life.”

“Whenever you handcraft something, you put your heart and soul in it. You have to do it with intention and sincerity. And because of that, I feel present in the moment.”