Interview with designer Bryant Phelan
Bryant Phelan is an Arkansas native known internationally for his unique handcrafted luxury leather bags. Bryant has been working with leather for over 20 years and has clients all over the world proudly carrying his one-of-a-kind creations. He has a love for the fantastical and surreal and is inspired by dreams and nature. As a result, his design brand, OFaolain, is a brand without rules but with individuals in mind. See more OFaolain bags at Grange Hall in Dallas, Texas, Sloan/Hall in Houston and San Antonio, Texas, Rockabilly Baroness in Roundtop, Texas, The Werk Gallery and Object Lab in St. Petersburg, Florida, and at OFaolainleather.com.
AAS: Bryant, where did you grow up?
BP: I grew up in Malvern, Arkansas. I went to Malvern High School and from there moved to Little Rock to attend University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I graduated from UALR with my degree in psychology and a minor in interpreting for the Deaf.
AAS: Were you encouraged to pursue art and design as a kid?
BP: I wasn’t necessarily encouraged to pursue art and design in particular, but I was always supported in my creative pursuits. I was constantly engaging myself in some new creative/artistic hobbies and just enjoyed working with my hands and experimenting.
AAS: You certainly have an interesting education for a designer and leathersmith. Where did you learn to work with leather?
BP: I actually taught myself over the years through trial and error. This was definitely a hard way to go about it, but I had no clue where to learn and we didn’t have YouTube tutorials then, plus it allowed me to develop my own approach to design. I’ve been working with leather from around the age of 12 or 13 and started making bags when I was 15. I mainly did this for myself and friends/family but started seeing it as more of a business in my undergrad. I made everything by hand until I got my first leather sewing machine in 2013 while in my master’s program for biostatistics at UAMS. This really helped give proper lift-off to my creative pursuits. I made and sold my first collection to Esse Purse Museum in Little Rock that year and was showing at New York Fashion Week with Little Rock fashion designer Korto Momolu in February 2014. I then got my own independent show at NYFW and things really started taking off. It was a bit surreal to be on a plane or in a hotel lobby working on cancer research and take-home tests while my bags were being photographed for Elle and other rad magazines and publications. I was going nonstop in every direction, which was incredibly exhausting, but I loved it. I decided to really make a go of it and left my PhD program in epidemiology and my day job at UAMS in 2017 to pursue design full-time and focus on building my brand.
AAS: Your background in mathematics really comes through in the Vector Handbag. How did you create that design?
Vector Handbag
BP: I really was just having a good time playing and experimenting with shapes and scales of grid patterns. I have always loved optical illusions and the theories behind sensation-perception, so I like to play with these aspects of design when creating a new bag. Sometimes I’m a little heavier handed with the distinct geometric and mathematical concepts and this bag is definitely one of those. I used a ballpoint pen to create the grid patterns on this leather and then sealed it with a saddle lacquer.
“When I work on new designs I’m often inspired by memories, nature, and dreams.”
AAS: The Butterfly Bag is a gorgeous bag. There must be a story behind it.
Butterfly Bag
BP: When I was a kid, I used to lay in my back yard and draw or paint eyes, faces, just doodles that often leaned to the surreal, and I was thrilled to find out that the monarch butterfly migration came right through my backyard. One moment I was laying in the grass alone playing with some watercolors and the next thing I knew I had hundreds of butterflies making their way all around me to go over the fence of our yard to the next. I was in such awe and have always had a special place for butterflies in my life, as trite as that may sound, but it is because of that experience. They migrated through our backyard for many years and that made a huge impression on me. When I work on new designs I’m often inspired by memories, nature, and dreams. When I started working on a new collection in 2017, I knew I wanted to reference the individual attributes of that moment in my backyard in a single work – the monarch butterfly, the watercolor, and a surreal face concept. When I saw this art nouveau printed leather I immediately started to make out a face and knew it was the starting point of this design. I used embroidered butterflies for the eyes and used watercolor on some neutral vegetable tanned leather for the lips.
AAS: What I love about your creations is that they are fine art with a function. Tell me about the Gold Tooth Bag. It must have been fun to create.
Kelli Gold Tooth Clutch
BP: It was definitely a fun bag to design but a bit of a beast to make in terms of layers and having things “drape” properly when in use. I make various styles of bags with this design where you can put your hand through the mouth to carry it. I always wanted a gold tooth when I was little, so this is where I got to finally bring that into my adulthood in a fun tongue-in-cheek way.
AAS: Where do you get your materials?
BP: I largely source my materials, including my custom hardware, from Italy. Otherwise, I work with some really wonderful brands based in the USA.
AAS: Are most of your bags custom pieces?
BeetleJuice Sandworm Bag
BP: I always have a healthy queue of custom orders to work on, but I also keep a decent stock of ready-made bags on my website. All items that I make are one-of-a-kind whether they are custom or ready-made. I also have some wonderful retail partners I work with. I have done some trunk shows in the past with Barbara/Jean and love the team there. I also have some fantastic stores that represent my brand and carry a selection of my products, such as in Dallas at Grange Hall. I highly encourage anyone traveling through Dallas to stop in, not just for the bags but for their exquisite restaurant! I also have retail partners where you can find my products at San Antonio, Roundtop, Houston, and St. Petersburg. I love making my rounds to these stores each season and have a great time coming up with new designs for my clients.
I often get custom orders on these trips as well and have a blast creating bags with a client’s specific personality in mind. One of my favorite and most complex custom orders I’ve received is the BeetleJuice Sandworm Bag. A lovely gal in Florida that is obsessed with Tim Burton got in touch with me and we dreamt up this elaborate design together.
AAS: The Springbok Bag has an extraordinary look. Tell me about it and your use of exotic leathers.
Jane Punk Candy Springbok Bag
BP: I originally found springbok hides in our local Tandy Leather store and was so taken by its mohawk. Springboks are somewhat like a small gazelle and when they get excited they do a sort of dance called “pronking” and jump up and down in place. When they do this, they arch their back which creates a Mohawk from their longer fur set in the middle of their back. I found the place in the hide where this feature was most prevalent and designed a bag that displayed the Mohawk when closed but allowed it to lie flat when open so that it could be safely stored and traveled with.
AAS: Some of your bags are clearly celebrating Japanese culture and history. Two of my favorites your East Meets East bag and the more subtle celebration of the Kintsugi bag. Tell me about those bags.
Demon Sealing Backpack
BP: Absolutely! I made the Demon Sealing Backpack for an Antigallery exhibition, which was a space created for artists not represented in galleries to show the quality of work that exists outside of gatekeeping entities. This was my favorite piece from a collection I presented titled “East Meets East”. I felt that too many artists and designers used Eastern cultures interchangeably and did not respect the individual cultures themselves. An example of this would be mixing Japanese kanji with a traditional Chinese dragon motif on a jacket. I wanted to create pieces that represented single Eastern cultures purely. This backpack is made from a vintage fabric panel that features imagery inspired by Japanese folklore and particularly one of my favorite Japanese wood block illustrations, Kawanable Kyōsai’s Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. The front leather panel features brass heads of Hannya, a vengeful spirit often showcased in Noh theater. The brass rings around the top of the bag are in reference to Japanese ritual staves used by monks and in this composition I wanted them to serve as a visual representation of a holy rite containing the spirits of these demons in the bag itself.
Kintsugi Clutch
As for the next bag, I love the concept of Kintsugi, a Japanese technique where broken pottery, among other things, is repaired using gold. This not only gives new life to a broken object but also makes it more beautiful and valuable. It speaks to the value of imperfections and how they are oftentimes the most beautiful things about us as people. To achieve this technique, I sketched a shattered pattern on the back of a marble printed leather and then hand-cut my pattern to make it look as though it was broken and overlaid that layer of leather over metallic gold lambskin. I often revisit this theme in my work and am always pleased with the response.
AAS: Do you design any other leather accessories or leather apparel?
Ensemble consisting of chaps, shoulder pauldrons, a headpiece, and a corset with a mohawk up the spine.
BP: Though case design –bags of all sorts– is my main focus, I occasionally get the opportunity, or a wild hair, to design and create other items, such as performance-wear pieces. This particular leather and feather design features a corset vest with a feather Mohawk up the back, a leather choker and shoulder pauldrons, cuff bracelets, and a pair of matching leather chaps. I was inspired by both video game armor and drag queens when creating this piece and it was intended for use in a music video, but Covid got in the way of that actually happening. But don’t let that make you think it hasn’t been worn plenty though! Hah! Plus, it is a really fun piece to keep in my office and is a constant source of conversation about the breadth of designs that leather can be used to create.
AAS: You were just at Paris Fashion Week. What is that experience like?
Love Lock Bridge Key Clutch in aubergine crocodile and 18k gold plate hardware from Paris Fashion Week Feb. 28 to March 5, 2024,
BP: It was overwhelming in the best of ways. I think I’m the first Arkansan to show at PFW? I had some great food and made some wonderful memories. I had a few friends/clients fly in from Houston to see the show and we had a great time together. I also just really enjoyed walking around the city and taking in all of its beautiful architecture. I’ve been showing at New York Fashion Week for 10 years, but this was a whole new experience for certain. I showed with Aryea Kobuluh, a fabulous apparel designer, who had seen my bags at my shows in NYC. We had a dinner for industry professionals and retail partners and several photoshoots leading up to the runway show. It was done presentation style where the runway was held in a beautiful parlor and then the models walked out into the grand hall just outside the runway area to walk around and present the clothing and bags to everyone in an interactive way over champagne. It was a lovely experience for everyone!
AAS: Tell me more about OFaolain brand and what we can expect to see next from you.
BP: Well, so far, I am a one-man-show and do everything from sourcing, designing, and hand-crafting to product photography, marketing, and website design. I am definitely expanding at a rate that will require hiring some employees and an apprentice sooner rather than later, probably a social media manager first, as that is so time consuming and I am having increasingly less time available for that and need to focus on design and production. I am continuing to build a strong network of retail partners so expect to see that territory increase and you can always expect to see new designs and concepts being introduced. I also have some fun new projects in the works that will feature a range of products that are not bags, such as leather objet d’art.
I really want to continue to build community here in Little Rock and Arkansas in general so you will continue to see me giving back to our local nonprofits, especially Thea Foundation where I serve as the Secretary of their Board of Directors. I can’t begin to speak on how much they do for the arts in Arkansas, and I encourage any art appreciators to check out their missions and get involved in some way. They are making art accessible to kids K-12 and supporting young aspiring artists with fantastic scholarships and opportunities to get their work professionally displayed. I’d like to thank them for all that they do and all that they have done to lift me up as well. I can’t end without giving the biggest thanks to my greatest inspirations, my mom Marilyn Phelan, to my dad Neil Phelan Jr., and my wonderful partner Jim Adamson III. Also, for any aspiring leathersmith, I highly encourage you to visit our local Tandy Leather, where you will find an incredible and helpful team, a fantastic array of supplies, and some useful and fun courses on leather design.
