Naresh Kumar leads a double life. An advertising copywriter by day, he swaps slogans for leather and thread in his spare time to create customised accessories, including wallets, phone cases and laptop covers.
His craft began as a hobby, because the kind of products he wanted weren’t readily available, he says. Now his products can be viewed on his website www.24thstreetco.tumblr.com, and he accepts commissions.
“I was looking for a phone wallet but the ones that I found were not to my liking – I’m a bit particular with the things that I hold and carry,” says Kumar.
“I thought of making one for myself and that’s when it started. I then started doing more and people, such as my friends, told me that they want the same thing and that’s when it became more serious.”
Kumar’s family is from Madurai in India but he grew up in Singapore and is now based in Dubai. His father – who makes and collect knives as a hobby – passed on to his son a natural distaste for anything that is ready-made.
Kumar recalls how, as a child, vacations invariably involved frequent visits with his father to the shops of local craftsmen.
“I thought then that it was a waste of time,” he says. “We could be doing so many other things on a holiday.
“But now, when I think about it, he instilled that into me: the appreciation of the process and the actual product, so you tend to see it more like an artefact or an art piece rather than just something that you use.”
That love for crafting is evident in the way Kumar creates his own range of accessories. It is a true one-man show, with the 32-year-old doing everything from scratch and by hand. He finds the process arduous but fulfilling.
“It’s like giving a part of myself and my time to the product that goes to the person,” he says.
Kumar loves working with leather because of its durability and timeless appeal.
“The majority of the leather I use is vegetable-tanned,” he says. “But one of the things that I add into my design is combining different kinds of leather. I work also with ostrich, bison and camouflaged leather. I want to incorporate old-world techniques of using leather with modern designs. A different mix of material adds more depth to your product.”
Kumar named his brand 24th St Handcrafted as a tribute to the street on which he grew up in Singapore. The bespoke nature of his business demands flexibility.
“It’s a wide variety of things,” he says. “The medium that I use is leather, but the idea of what I’m gonna make, it’s really open. I’ve made watch straps, belts, and plan to start making shoes.
“There are also plans to do coffee-capsule dispensers and speaker and laptop stands. So, there is also the experimental part of it that I’m willing to take on – everything and anything, I’m going to try to do it.”
For now, Kumar is happy making and selling the items on a commission basis. The wallets cost from about Dh600, while laptop covers begin from Dh1,000. Expansion is part of his plan, but he says he feels uneasy with the concept of setting up a shop to sell his items.
“It’s definitely going to happen,” he says. “But for now everything is custom-made. It’s more like you tell me what you want, we work on it and I give you the _product.
“The thing is, when you think about a store, you start thinking about mass production and it is not what the brand stands for.”
Visit www.24thstreetco.tumblr.com or call 055 844 9762 for more information
