The Leda and New York Fashion week update

I was not planning to write about this today. But here we are.

This is my first official handbag for the Ian Chaffardet Handcrafted collection. And it is a swan.

Not a bag with a swan on it. A bag that is a swan. The neck becomes the handle. The body becomes the bag. The wings form the base. Orange and black beak against white pebble leather. Saddle stitched. Burnished edges. Feather pattern stitched directly into the leather.

It has to hold its shape or it looks like a dead bird. That is not a metaphor. That is a structural problem I am currently solving before I cut a single piece of leather.

As a character designer I have spent twenty years looking for the line between the mundane and the majestic. Nature always finds it first. The Leda is my answer to that.

Now about New York Fashion Week. I had plans. Real ones. I am changing them because I have to, not because I want to. Personal matters that need my time and my peace. I have learned the hard way that pushing through at the expense of your wellbeing is just damage that shows up later.

So NYFW moves to 2027. And I am genuinely happy about it. Because now I have time to build this collection properly. I do not have a full concept yet. I know nature will be at the center of it. Beyond that I am leaving space for the work to tell me what it wants to be.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWwxJMVDbdZ/?igsh=Mmh1c2FkN2swNHN1