For The Love Of Handcrafted Leather: Native Sand Brings A New Honesty To The Craft

Here at ENTIRE Magazine, we believe in supporting genuine and hard-working entrepreneurs, people and brands. When we connected with Native Sand our team was elated to find out the art of handcrafted leather goods was not a dying breed but a true passion. We've traveled the globe only to connect with an authentic community and Native Sand owners,  Nikki Lynn Wiener and  Josué Leonardo Contreras, showed us just that.

Interview: Native Sand

"Our goal in the community and in our trade is to design with honesty, deliver with excellence and remain the underdog. With our main focus being domestically produced goods, we source each hide of leather from American tanneries because of their quality standard & their ability to procure an environmentally friendly and humane conscious. Each good is carefully handcrafted in small batches, out of our studio."

Interview by ENTIRE Magazine

All other images courtesy of Native Sand

ENTIRE: How did you first start on your path? 

Native Sand: With both of us being fascinated by art, aesthetics, design& a drive to learn new things, it only took our first hide of leather to realize we wanted to pursue the craft. After learning traditional techniques, we began elaborating on designs, with our main focus being on functionality and style.   

ENTIRE: We love it. Where did the name Native Sand derive from? 

NA: ‘Native’ stands for the respect of where we’ve set our roots in Melbourne, Fl. Whereas ‘Sand’ stands for respectful drift around the world.   

ENTIRE: What’s the process of finding your own inspiration or the inspiration of the line? 

NA: Naturally, we like to create what solves our problems. Most of our collections are built from products that offer solutions to an everyday carry. However, we often get inspired by the leather itself. The different textures and colors let us envision the look of new products.  

ENTIRE: Do you have a specific aesthetic or is your aesthetic that constant push? 

NA: Over the time, we’ve developed a consistent aesthetic which started by the avoidance of an over-polished look. One of the biggest factors comes from our curation of leather. We chose from beautiful American tanned hides & design with simplicity in mind. Always looking to evolve our designs is also what narrates our aesthetic from time to time.   

ENTIRE: The pressure on a new business or goal can be heavy, what have you done to help your brand grow and help in funding? 

NA: We’ve been very lucky to have support from our community when we emerged as a company. As time went on more people got to know us and the traction continued. Recently, we surfaced in another community on Kickstarter, where we’ve found the benefits exposure and funding.  

ENTIRE: What do you think handcrafted leather goods do best? 

NA: It brings a sense of enriched character to your everyday carry. More than the smell and natural wear, Leather is a renewable resource which uses stems from a time before us and will live on past us.   

ENTIRE: What are some of your favorite pieces from your line? 

NA: One of our favorites is the Rodolfo messenger bag. It’s one of the most functional & captures our aesthetic to a T. Looking over the details of the bag often reminds of how far we’ve come. However, new products also have a special place in our heart. The Nezt, our project on Kickstarter, is simple yet an everyday tool.

Find them on Instagram @nativesand