Globally inspired style. Handmade in Richmond, Virginia, USA.
Our Story
Since 2013, Blackbyrd Goods has been creating handcrafted, high quality leather goods. Our storefront in the Carytown district of Richmond, Virginia is also our studio where everything is made start to finish. Customers have the immersive experience of watching their leather goods come to life and seeing the passion and detail that goes into every piece. We strive for every visit to be different since we’re always trying new ideas, creating new things, and rotating our seasonal clothing inventory. Check out why we've been voted Richmond's favorite men's shopping and leather store.
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Humble Beginnings
I started my leather working journey in 2013 after losing my favorite leather wallet on a trip abroad. I have always been a big fan of vegetable tanned leather accessories, how beautiful they look new and how they slowly patina and soften. Instead of purchasing a new one I decided to figure out how to make my own. After a year or so of practice I was finally making items that would get attention in public and was strongly encouraged by friends and strangers both to start selling merchandise and to open a webstore. In 2017 my girlfriend (now wife) and I started experimenting with screen printing in my basement. We would stay up all night drinking wine practicing mixing and burning our own emulsions, baking and washing out the screens, and of course testing which inks worked the best on vegetable tanned leather. This ended up allowing me to find my voice in the leather community and sell products that were genuinely and distinctly mine.
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Mens Shopping
Once the Covid pandemic began to slow down and reality started to begin again one thing became clear, it had killed Richmond's men's shopping. One area particularly affected was Carytown, where I had just opened my shop. Taking the suggestions from friends, customers, and local business owners I decided to start going to the trade shows in NYC to further expand my stores offering and try to become Carytown's mens store. This has become my favorite part of the entrepreneurial experience as I can scale the business without having to hand make every product. Traveling to Manhattan twice a year and getting the opportunity to meet so many great businesses to pick out amazing clothes to sell has been the best pivot forward since opening the store and Im excited to see where it goes.
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Our Leather Screen Printing Process
All of our leather products are handmade and screen printed in our Carytown storefront. This video showcases the multistage process of applying the ink to the leather. I am always on the lookout for new design inspirations with most ideas coming from geometric or mosaic tiles found from my travels around the world.
