Style Companion
Luxury Lies and the Leather Line I Couldn’t Launch
by Thea Elle | May 9, 2025 | Style Guide
I once believed that style honesty and craftsmanship were enough to build a brand. That belief didn’t collapse in flames but faded slowly and quietly as I watched my vision struggle to survive without the armor of PR celebrity endorsements or editorial anointment. Like many creators drawn to the raw elegance of leather I was captivated by the idea of authenticity in an age of mass-produced hype.
Before TANNER LEATHERSTEIN made his mark by slicing through GUCCI totes and FENDI bags with scalpel-like precision I was already on the same path. He exposed the plastic cores and cynical markups while I lived them firsthand. I tried to build something different. With my partner Coco I started CRIS & COCO a small leather goods brand born from post 9/11 grit and stitched in Brooklyn. We made bags not for status but for style and substance.
But what we made didn’t matter because in the world of luxury quality is invisible without the right narrative. We weren’t part of the fashion machine. There were no runways no museum collaborations no high-profile stylists flaunting our designs on red carpets. In a marketplace driven by myth and access our truth had no currency.
When Craftsmanship Isn’t Enough
We began with conviction selling bags from a folding table on West Broadway and sewing through sleepless nights in a tiny Greenpoint workshop. We sourced locally aiming for “Made in NY” excellence. But the infrastructure had crumbled. The once mighty Garment District had shrunk to a shadow forcing us to pivot.
In 2007 we moved production to GUANGZHOU. There factories offered astonishing technical precision. But they didn’t want vision they wanted instructions. They handed us CELINE lookbooks and YSL silhouettes asking which logo to stamp. Originality wasn’t part of the process it was an inefficiency they couldn’t justify.
And why should they care about originality They weren’t villains. They were survivors in an industry where creativity doesn’t scale. They had seen dreamers like me before. We offered custom designs and fair wages but the system favored replicas. They knew that customers didn’t want something new. They wanted what they already recognized and trusted.
The Invisible Brand
The harshest truth I learned is that luxury isn’t sold on craftsmanship it’s sold on permission. Gatekeepers like LVMH KERING and RICHEMONT don’t just sell handbags. They sell access validation and myth. Without their blessing your work might be excellent but it’s illegible to the market.
The Semiotics of Scarcity
Luxury is not about function. It’s about meaning. That three thousand dollar bag doesn’t carry your essentials it carries your identity. As Roland Barthes suggested luxury is language. When you hold a CHANEL or HERMÈS you’re not holding leather. You’re holding symbolism stitched into scarcity and whispered through editorial pages.
A Shenzhen leather artisan at work bridging the gap between replica and real.
Can Tanner’s Dream Survive the System
TANNER LEATHERSTEIN’s message is powerful celebrate the maker destroy the illusion own your narrative. But in an industry engineered to ignore the unaffiliated his dream feels more poetic than practical. Talent alone cannot breach the luxury fortress not without capital connections and cultural consent.
Why We Still Craft
CRIS & COCO may never land on the pages of VOGUE or walk the MET GALA carpet. But we still create quietly beautifully and often invisibly. Because in a world intoxicated by logos making something with meaning still matters.
There’s hope in every stitch and story. Maybe one day luxury will no longer be about who tells the story but how truthfully it’s told. Until then we keep crafting even if no one is watching.