Forest to fashion: Manitoba handbag designer's work up for international award

Adam French's high school hobby, designing bracelets out of found items like brush bristles, has blossomed into a high-end handbag business — and now one of his creations is up for a major international award.

One of French's Adan Ballou handbags is a finalist in the best handmade bag category at the Independent Handbag Designer Awards in New York — but the recognition is not what he works for.

"Every bag that I make is unique, every bag is an evolution," said French. "Every bag is an expression of me, and I'm learning. That's the fun for me." 

French, better known as Adan Ballou in the world of handbags, has been designing purses and other accessories for the last decade. The moniker is made up of two parts — Adan, the Spanish translation of Adam, and Ballou, his great-grandmother's maiden name.

Love for leather 

French used to work in IT. The self-described computer geek would spend his days in a server room, swapping out memory chips or installing new LAN or wireless connections.

His love for leather started when he went into Tandy Leather in Calgary. He wanted to make a seat for his motorcycle. 

"I went down and fell in love with the material," French said during an interview at his small workshop on his property in the rural municipality of Elton, just north of Forrest, Man. 

"Here was leather and it was like, 'Wow, I can do everything I want with this. It's something I can use,' " he said.

"It took me five or six years to come around to wanting to make handbags the way I do." 

His products sell for hundreds of dollars, sometimes going for upwards of $1,000. Buyers have come from as far away as Europe. They're sold online and in some boutiques, including Lennard Taylor in Winnipeg's Exchange District.

In 2017, he was a finalist at the Independent Handbag Designer Awards in the most socially sustainable category. This year he plans to drive to New York with his wife for the ceremony on June 12. 

"People who come out of this contest can have a really big launching pad to quite a career," he said. 

Handmade and sustainable 

He feels his approach — from drawing the design to using recycled materials and crafting each bag by hand, meticulously making each stitch — sets him apart from other designers. 

"I look at it and say, 'Well, that was a good learning experience,' " he said about finishing a bag.

They can take six months or longer to create. 

"Oftentime what comes out is the little pieces I'm happy with," French said.

"I think that's probably a lot of the reason I make the way that I make, as an artist, not as a mass-producing designer." 

French's products are created using sustainable methods, which is also important to him.  

"It's an enormous part," he said.

Deer hides for his bags are from local hunters. Sometimes he finds deer hides dropped off anonymously at his home — which can be a headache, he said, if he can't track where or who it came from. 

The hides are fleshed, scraped and preserved in a salt solution for up to two years, he said. When he's ready to use a particular hide, he rehydrates it with water from the well on his property, works the hair or fur out and stretches it again. 

The dyes for his leather come from items such as onion skins or even flowers from his flowerbed. Scrap brass is melted down and formed into a mould for a buckle or other metal piece for the bag.

"If we can track from farm to table, we should be able to track from pasture to purse," French said.

Sustainable items are increasingly popular and customers are willing to pay for them, he said. 

"We are participants in this environment and we should kind of respect it that way," he said. 

The $750 bag up for an award this year was left a natural white, meaning it wasn't dyed.

The interior is lined with a blue agave cactus silk he bought in the souks of Marrakech — a marketplace in Morocco.

Confidence 

French isn't sure what the future hold for him and his business, but looking back, he's gained a lot more than skills and money along the way, he said.

"I can design with confidence," he said. "I've come far enough to believe in myself, that I can make something that's beautiful that people will appreciate.

"And frankly, I think that's probably the most valuable thing I could have got."