It began in 1986 with a jeans belt and high ambitions

Forty years later, Saddler from Kungsbacka has grown into an established brand offering bags, belts, and leather accessories for both retail and e-commerce. Much has changed along the way – but the passion for leather, solid craftsmanship, and timeless design remains.

The fact that Saddler's history began with belts, of all things, was actually something of a coincidence. Founders Niklas Sällström and Pelle Lannér came into contact with a Dutch manufacturer of heavy leather jeans belts and decided to test them on the Swedish market. One of their first customers was the Swedish jeans chain JC.

As the business grew, Saddler needed to find new suppliers, a process that looked very different before the internet. Sällström and Lannér travelled around Europe and found several of their suppliers in Italy, which has a long tradition of leathercraft.

"Not many people in Italy spoke English back then, so in our hotel room we looked up the Italian word for belt and searched for manufacturers in the Yellow Pages. Then we drove around to the factories and knocked on doors," says Sällström, who still sits on Saddler's board.

Some of the contacts from those years developed into lasting relationships. One of the suppliers Sällström got to know as early as the beginning of the 1990s still manufactures a large portion of the company's belts to this day.

In an industry dominated by fast trends, we focus on products that age with elegance and stand the test of time. The durability, natural variations, and evolution of leather over the years are key starting points in our design work. Every product is developed with a focus on carefully selected materials, function, and quality, combining our craftsmanship with a Scandinavian design language and attention to every detail.

What the founders once started in Italy lives on in our current relationships. Today, we collaborate with everything from large-scale factories with their own tanneries to small family-run businesses with specialist expertise. Many of our partnerships date back a long way, and in some cases, we are now working with the second generation.

The foundation of every partnership is always the supplier's ability to live up to our high standards of craftsmanship and sustainable production.

For us, it is about maintaining an ongoing dialogue with our suppliers and working together to develop methods that contribute to higher quality and sustainable production.