As long as she can remember, Rina made her own clothes or customised clothes she bought. In later years, besides a busy day job as a manager/physician, she enjoyed to continue this. A few years ago, she started to design and sewed leather purses, clutches, and small bags as presents for friends and family.
She has taken several courses in leather working to improve her skills. A few years ago Rina started selling her products on the internet.
All products are made of handpicked samples of European leather and eco-tanned and eco-dyed whenever possible. Rina cares deeply about quality, therefore all her products are made with attention to detail. Recently she started creating accessories made from exotic leather (very limited series).
Atelier
In the workshop you can find several sewing machines: an industrial leather sewing machine, electronic smaller sewing machine and a over locking sewing machine (a serger). Rinarts’ “newest” sewing machine is an 100 year old Singer 29K58, this machine is used for sewing thick saddle leather.
Rinarts doesn’t have a larges stock and because the shop is small, Rinarts mainly creates unique items. Almost all of the products that are made, can be found in the Rinarts shops.
Leather working tools
Apart from the machines, the hand tools are essential for making leather products. Working with leather usually means you are working with hand tools a lot.
Materials
Rina loves bright colors, but also fell in love with the natural vegetable tanned leather. This leather darkens beautifully to a light honey over the years.
All hardware she uses are of high quality. Recently she started to use wood in her designs
The leathers
Linings
Rinarts uses top quality suede or lambskins to line her larger bags. In her clutches she also loves to use italian heavy cotton, in natural or off white, or English quilt fabrics with beautiful prints.
Linen and hemp
Besides the antique linens, Rinarts purchased also some beautiful heavy new linens for her bags and clutches.