An Osmotherley-based luxury leather smith has added yet another award to his belt, rounding off 2022 on Insider’s 42 under 42 list, crowned Leather products retailer of the year in the North East Prestige Awards, Best Men’s Luxury Leather Goods and Accessories Retailer (North East) in the Northern Enterprise Awards, and now The Best New Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Best New Tees Business Awards.
Stuart Coupland, owner of Coupland Leather, set the business up from scratch following redundancy in January 2020, turning a hobby into a thriving business just six weeks before the country plunged into lockdown.
Now, Stuart exports his handcrafted products all over the world, and has partnerships with Araminta Campbell, Master Debonair, the Engravers Guild and the Jet Centre, as well as selling through the Coupland Leather website. Most recently, Coupland Leather has started manufacturing its high-quality leather goods for other companies under the client’s branding. This expands the availability of quality leather items available to the public and helps to combat cheap goods while raising awareness of fast fashion and the issues it causes – encouraging customers to invest in items which are made to stand the test of time and become heirlooms to be passed down.
Stuart said: “It’s been another amazing year, and so exciting to be recognised on so many levels for everything we’ve done. I’m so grateful to all of our customers, our stockists, and to everyone who has supported me on this journey to get to where we are.”
Stuart has also given significant support to local charities over the last 12 months, in particular raising over £2,500 since the start of October for The Teesside Charity, Learning Curve Group and BNI Charity as well as donating £1,800 of products to the Charlie Gard Foundation to be auctioned on 26th November. Most recently, Coupland Leather made Age UK Teesside its charity of the year, actively supporting the charity and its efforts to help older people in their region.
Coupland Leather has achieved consistent and significant growth, up 70 per cent in the financial year 2020-21 and forecasting further grown by the end of 2022.
The company handcrafts all its leather products in house, from scratch. There are also several options for personalisation, from stamped initials, dates and names, to laser engraving and corporate debossing stamps and the company now offers custom one-off 3D printed stamps.
