Retro x Livid

Two weeks ago the renowned high-end and Trondheim based shop Retro had their 30^th anniversary. In spirit of this celebration we got together with the team at Retro to prepare an exciting limited edition collaboration that we made by hand exclusively for their 30^th year in business.

Centuries back Halley Stevenson produced canvas and fabric to local sailors and cloth-merchants. Through this, with years of experience they’ve gained tremendous experience in creating heavy-duty textiles and waxed canvas treatments. All though a pair of jeans would have been a quick fix, we’ve always had a good eye to the fabrics hailing from Halley Stevenson, and have for a long time wanted to do more accessories in our factory in Norway.

You can always tell by the marks if cows have a good environment to live in with no barbed fences. The leather will reveal if the surroundings are sound by being en even surface with little to no marks. Norwegian leather is well known by having great conditions for the cows, and with that, excellent leather. With excellent leather, giving good care and treatments to the leather is an important aspect of the process. The vegtan straps on the totes has been waxed with leather-fat prepared with pre-historic methods, and handmade by one person in a small town on the westcoast of Norway. Through time the leather will declare how it has been used, and equally to denim, it will communicate your journey beautifully. 

During the wars, when all we had was horses to carry us around, they started to mount rivets on their horse saddles to ensure more balance and precision for the soldiers. The rivets never fell of, and the working saddle has adopted this so that it can handle heavy friction. We have also used rivets and hammered them on to bond canvas and leather together, and this will ensure that the two striking materials always will be joined.

Renata, our Master Seamstress has used a single needle stitch construction throughout the entire bag, with no open seams for a clean finish. On areas that are more likely to tear more, we have taped all open seams and bar tacked all the edges for added durability and a clean and beautiful look.  With only four hands and tough materials we have created a simplistic bag in this collaboration that will last at least one decade. And we guaranty that it will.

You can find our 14 navy totes and 6 black totes in the Retro shops in Trondheim, Bergen and Kristiansand or online here.

Love,
Livid.