When Patrick Pearson started Blackbyrd Goods in 2013 as an online store for handcrafted leather goods, it was a side project. In the beginning, he got into leatherworking for fun and took orders from friends on bar napkins while a finance student at Virginia Commonwealth University. Three years later, when he developed a technique for screenprinting patterns onto leather, his business took off.
Now, Blackbyrd Goods is nearing its fourth year as a popular store in Carytown, with goods still sold online and wholesale to other small businesses.
“I won’t say I’m the only one doing it, but I’ve been in the leatherworking community for a long time, and I haven’t seen anyone else screenprinting leather by hand,” Pearson says. “This technique is what separated my work from others’ and gave it its voice.”
Pearson makes all of his products by hand inside the Carytown space. Often, he invites customers up to the workbench to watch the process and talk about the leather, which comes from a family-run tannery in St. Louis called Hermann Oak Leather Co.
“Hermann Oak is the oldest family-run tannery in the U.S., and I try to preach their company vision as a sustainable business,” Pearson says. “They have livestock yards, so the animals are treated humanely, and they use other parts of the animal, too.”
Popular products include wallets, belts, tote bags and watch bands. Many feature unique patterns, applied with Pearson’s screenprinting technique. One such pattern is a parody of the Louis Vuitton logo that reads “VA” instead of “LV.” Other patterns are simple, clean designs Pearson developed.
“I’ve always loved mosaics,” he says. “A lot of the patterns are based on things I’ve seen in tiles around the world, like Roman and Arabic tiles. But my inspiration comes from everywhere. My latest design is based on a bathroom tile I saw in Iceland.”
Besides his unique style, Pearson says that innovation is what keeps his work fresh and drives his business. “I change the way I screenprint, I change the patterns and designs,” he says. “I look at my work as building up walls and breaking them down.”
