'I produced a leather collar for Donny Osmond, making has always been in my blood' - Meet Yorkshire leather worker who has built her business on heritage craft skills

Naomi is behind the York-based handcrafted leatherwork business Morgan & Wells, a small-batch firm she has steadily developed over the past eleven years. At 47, she can see now that making has always been in her blood.

Her parents were both teachers, her father a woodworker, sharing his skills in Design Technology. Her mother’s subject was geography, though like Naomi’s nan, she also found great joy in sewing, embroidering and knitting. It feels inevitable, Naomi reflects now, that tools and textiles would eventually collide in the family tree.

"With leatherwork, you have the two sides of it,” she says. “You’ve got the tools and the knives and the hardware and then you’ve got the stitching and the needles and making that look beautiful.”

Naomi first tried her hand at the skill after being made redundant whilst on maternity leave with a then four-month old. She used re-training money to enrol on a three-day leatherworking course and knew instantly she’d found her calling.

From then, she’s built her business around raising her children, growing her tool collection and developing the skills herself around the hustle of family life.

Two years ago, Morgan & Wells became a full-time job and today Naomi is the proud creator of a range of leather products, from jewellery, keyrings and belts, to wallets, purses, bags and office materials.

“I wanted to use traditional skills and tools rather than using a machine,” she explains. “So, everything I do is hand (made)…I don't do big long runs of items. So, if I buy a hide, it will be x amount of metres and that will be it. That's all I have of that hide…I don't really want to go into mass production. I'd rather do high quality repairs and production using traditional skills.”

"I try and make the items at the end and the products look functional and modern rather than very old-fashioned,” she adds. “So, I've pushed my designs to try and make the items modern and usable for today's society. But I'm using everything that's heritage-based.”

She produces it all from a workshop at her home in York, a space currently being renovated as Naomi prepares for a busy year ahead. Alongside her creations, she takes on commissions and also hosts workshops to support people to learn the craft of leatherwork and traditional skills like saddle stitching and edge burnishing.

Her work now spans two additional strands too – a restoration arm, covering everything from sympathetic repairs and full overhauls to replica pieces; and a theatrical arm, which sees Naomi create leather costumes and props for the stage.

“That was kind of by fluke,” she says. “My brother is a set designer and he was designing the set for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He was in a meeting with the costume people and unfortunately the guy who normally did their costume leatherwork had just had a stroke and wasn't able to do it. My brother said, ‘Oh, my sister does leatherwork’. And that was it.”

Her first theatre work was for a West End run at the London Palladium, starring Jason Donovan among the cast. She’s since produced leatherwork on costumes for world and UK tours of the show, including making a pharaoh’s collar for Donny Osmond.

"I do all of the belts and then the handcuffs for the brothers and the wives,” says Naomi, who has also worked on productions of Miss Saigon and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. “They're all made to look biblical and worn and like they've been through the desert. That’s about four weeks, or five weeks, of work at least.

"Then it’s the pharaoh collars which have to be pristine and all precisely measured and made to look very expensive. So there's a lot of work and that can take three weeks per collar to do.”

On the restoration side, Staffordshire-born Naomi, who first moved to York for university, has worked on items including Hickory golf bags, heirloom boxes, briefcases, handbags, and even a Santa’s belt.

For a current commission, she’s focused on restoring railway token bags. “When trains pass each other on a steam line, they hand over a key (or token) and put it in a big bag,” she explains. “And it means that they can't go onto the same line at the same time. So it's kind of a safety device for steam.

"The bags have got a big white metal hoop so when they hand it out the window of the train, the other person can put their arm through the hoop and catch it essentially.”

“I also had one lady who brought in this tiny, tiny suitcase,” Naomi remembers. “She said it was the only remaining thing she had that reminded her of her grandma and that her grandma kept tiny little things inside it. I did the restoration on that and I did a Repair Shop-style reveal and she just burst into tears.

"She came to see me at Christmas with all the little bits in the case and there was the cutest little leather gloves, absolutely tiny, and a miniature Bible and things like that. It's those projects that make it because you put a lot of time and a lot of thought into these things. So it's nice when you have a result like that.”

When she’s not in the workshop, Naomi runs a lively ukulele group, is a Queen’s Scout and enjoys skiing, volleyball and rugby union. Her love of music, scouting and sport has stuck with her since childhood and for several years, she brought together those passions through her work, supporting the establishment of forest schools across the country.

She has hopes this year of taking her leatherwork workshops outdoors, through a men’s mental health project. "(My vision is that) they can go and openly talk about mental health issues in the woods and make leatherwork at the same time,” she says.

“That's aimed at men that don't want to sit in a room and talk about mental health. Instead it’s go and make a belt, go and make a wallet, and if you want to talk to someone about issues, you can.”

Naomi is also focused on sustainability and last year, as well as going to Downing Street to represent small businesses in the UK after making the shortlist in the Small Awards, she was invited to the House of Lords to discuss how SMEs can play an important role in shaping a greener future.

The notion of restoring, repairing and reusing rather than replacing forms part of her business and Naomi says she works with suppliers with sustainable practices - two tanneries and a foundry which also all champion traditional craftsmanship and the protection of heritage skills.

“I suppose I carry a bit of a message really for people that if they get made redundant or if they're trying to set up something up around having children, it's doable,” Naomi says, “And you can make a full-time living out of a heritage craft.”

- To find out more about Naomi’s work, visit www.morganandwells.co.uk