The story of
Klavs Graae and the soul of leather
My love for leather began in 1967, where I started working in the first European leather workshop, Bit Ov Sole, in central Copenhagen. It was an exciting an inspiring period, where I worked with craftsmen from all over the world.
Klavs Graae - the story
My love for leather began in 1967, where I started working in the first European leather workshop, Bit Ov Sole, in central Copenhagen. It was an exciting an inspiring period, where I worked with craftsmen from all over the world. Among other things I made bags and designed jackets for band members of Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Canned Heat and Ten Years After.
I immigrated to the Spanish island, Ibiza, in 1969, where my handmade leather products became popular with the American draft dodgers from the Vietnam War, who lived there. However, after one year under Franco’s regime.
I returned to Scandinavia, and I spend the next 14 years living deep in the forests of Småland, Sweden. I developed my skills in leather artisanship and worked with forestry, self-sufficiency, and the breeding of wild boar – a powerful and intriguing animal, which I later made a part of my logo.
I returned to Denmark in 1984 and founded Graae Design. Working from my workshop based in Copenhagen. I continued making belts, small leather goods, leather clothing, hunting equipment (in cooperation with Warings Hunting and Wildlife Gallery) and made product development for Royal Copenhagen, e.g. leather goods and special protective packaging for the famous Flora Danica porcelain.
In 2001, I started developing the later famous “Klavs Graae Solid Silver Collection”, a luxurious belt collection with solid silver buckles and genuine reptile skin, refining every single belt to the ultimate.
Graae Design became Graae Copenhagen in 2009, a new constellation in a new cooperation.
Here I developed new product lines such as business and weekend bags, I-pad covers etc. I stepped out of the company in the spring of 2014, and started on my own again in my old workshop in Copenhagen, longing for independence and being able to use my own hands to produce only unique luxury leather of my own designs.
Today I only produce products from my workshop in Copenhagen, using my 50 years of experience – the soul of leather.
Klavs Graae
