WLM | art
WLM | art
WHITE BUFFALO
– Preserving
In the Guatemalan town of Chiquimula , which is about 200 miles from Guatemala City , there exists a small shop where leather bags are made . Hand-cut , hand-dyed , hand-sewn , complete with all the battle scars the animal came with , each one is unique and tells its own story .
James Sanderson , Afton , Wyoming attorney , went on an LDS Mission in 1989 and wanted a briefcase to carry his books in . He eventually acquired one in Guatemala and still has it .
In 2007 , James married the daughter of a family he knew there . On a visit back to see her family , his father-in-law , who had experience in export , asked about products they could purchase in Guatemala and send back to the U . S . to sell . James thought of that leather briefcase and felt that would be a good product to suggest .
James decided that if he was going to get involved with the sale of leather goods , he was going to design them and set the standard of quality that he wanted . “ I flew to
Guatemala and met with a guy that has a leather worker ’ s shop and we talked at each other instead of with each other ,” James said . “ I kinda pride myself on being fluent in Spanish , but I wasn ’ t fluent in leather terms .” The Guatemalan gentleman made a few bags for them , but they weren ’ t the quality James was looking for .
In 2011 , James ’ s father-in-law introduced him to an old Guatemalan gentleman that had taught leather working at a trade school . He agreed to work with James as a consultant . James acquired the leather and the gentleman taught them how to put them together . He seemed to understand the quality James was after . He sat down with James and taught him how to cut , sew and do the designs . James actually made a bag himself which , he learned , was not an easy task . He said it took about two and a half days to sew the front and back on by hand , discovering there can be up to 1700 stitches in some of the items . “ It was backbreaking work , and made me realize that you don ’ t just sit down and sew these things . It takes some work and skill !”
James is passionate about preserving working methods and culture . It saddens him to see some of the old ways of life disappearing . Tailors are one trade that he mentioned – there used to be a tailor on every corner and you could get good handmade clothing just for yourself . That exists no more . When he was on his mission in Guatemala in the late 1980s , he had some shirts made by the Mayan people . “ Each Mayan village has its own weave , pattern and color , similar to Scottish clan patterns ,” James explains . “ The women weave the cloth for their skirts . I bought the fabric from a local market . One fabric was from Nebáj , Quiche , Guatemala , the other was from Sololá , Sololá , Guatemala .” The shirts were so good that James still has them – he said the miracle of that is that they still fit !
That idea of preserving trades plays into the products White Buffalo Republic creates . “ The main purpose
22 Wyoming Lifestyle Magazine | Fall & Holiday 2017