When I began choosing leather for the Ruyi, I was thinking about more than how the handbag would look when it was new. I was thinking about the surface itself, how much of the natural material I wanted to remain visible, and what kind of relationship I wanted that surface to have with the rest of the design.
Much of designing the Ruyi involved control. I adjusted curves repeatedly, reconsidered proportions, developed different carving compositions, changed hardware decisions, and worked through details until the relationships between them began to feel resolved. Against all of that deliberate control, I became interested in the idea that the leather itself did not need to become perfectly uniform. The design could be precise without requiring the natural material to erase every trace of its own variation.
That was one of the reasons I chose full grain leather.
The term has a more specific technical meaning than the simplified hierarchy often used when leather is marketed to consumers. Leather Working Group, drawing on established industry terminology, defines full grain leather as leather that retains its entire grain surface without corrective mechanical treatment removing part of that surface. Corrected grain leather, by comparison, has had some of the grain mechanically removed through processes such as buffing before subsequent finishing (Leather Working Group, 2024).
That distinction mattered to me because I wanted the original grain surface to remain part of the material used for the Ruyi. The grain forms the outer surface of the hide and contains the natural structure and variation of the material. When that surface is retained, the leather does not begin from the assumption that every visible difference must be mechanically removed in order for the finished object to appear refined.
This does not mean that every natural mark should appear on every handbag or that material selection becomes unnecessary. A structured handbag still requires judgment because different areas of a hide behave differently, large panels need to work visually together, and certain natural characteristics may be unsuitable for particular structural or aesthetic applications. Choosing full grain leather does not mean using every section of a hide indiscriminately. It means that natural variation is not automatically treated as a defect simply because one piece of leather does not look mechanically identical to another.
I also think it is important to be precise about what the phrase “full grain” does and does not tell us.
Leather terminology is often turned into a simple ranking in which full grain appears at the top and everything else is treated as progressively inferior. I do not find that particularly useful because different leather constructions and finishes exist for different purposes. A corrected grain leather can be beautifully made, while a more heavily protected surface may be entirely appropriate for an application that prioritizes consistency, stain resistance, abrasion resistance, or ease of maintenance. Leather intended for automotive interiors, footwear, furniture, jackets, luggage, or handbags may require very different combinations of thickness, flexibility, surface protection, appearance, durability, and performance.
Even the phrase “genuine leather” tells someone relatively little about the overall quality of a finished product on its own. It may establish that the material is leather, but it does not explain which part of the hide was used, how the surface was treated, how the material was tanned, what finish was applied, how thick it is, or how the finished object was constructed.
A material category cannot evaluate an entire handbag.
For the Ruyi, the phrase full grain tells me something narrower and more useful: the original grain surface has been retained rather than mechanically corrected away. Everything that happens after that still matters.
The finish is especially important. Leather Working Group distinguishes aniline, semi aniline, and pigmented leathers according to how the surface is finished and how clearly the underlying grain remains visible. Aniline leather retains a highly visible natural grain with little or no pigmented surface coating, while semi aniline leather uses a limited amount of pigment while still allowing the natural grain to remain visible. More heavily pigmented finishes can create greater visual consistency and surface protection while concealing more of the grain underneath (Leather Working Group, 2024).
Two leathers can therefore both retain their full grain and still look, feel, and behave very differently. Their tannage, dyes, oils, waxes, pigments, protective coatings, thickness, temper, and intended application all contribute to what the finished material becomes.
This distinction matters because I do not want XU to use “full grain” as though the phrase itself proves craftsmanship or quality. It does not. I chose full grain because preserving the original grain surface suited the visual and material character I wanted for this particular handbag, while the rest of the object still has to justify itself through construction, function, and execution.
There is also something I find compelling about placing a naturally varied material inside such a controlled design.
The flap of the Ruyi was revised until its curve felt balanced. The carving was edited repeatedly. The hardware needed to align with the proportions of the leather body, and the structure had to remain consistent enough that one finished handbag still belonged clearly to the same design as another. Within that precision, the leather introduces a different kind of order because its surface does not need to be mechanically identical from one panel to the next in order to belong.
That tension between precision and natural variation interests me much more than trying to manufacture absolute sameness. It has also changed the way I think about refinement, because refinement does not necessarily require eliminating every irregularity. Sometimes it requires understanding the difference between variation that belongs naturally to a material and inconsistency that comes from poor execution.
Those things are not the same.
I want XU to become increasingly clear about that distinction as the brand grows. Natural variation should never become an excuse for careless craftsmanship, just as craftsmanship should not require natural materials to imitate synthetic uniformity. The aim is not imperfection for its own sake, but a balance between material honesty and disciplined construction.
Time enters the conversation after that, although I think this is another area where leather marketing can easily become oversimplified.
Full grain leather is not the only leather capable of changing with use. Corrected grain leather can change, split leather can change, and leather sold under broad consumer descriptions such as genuine leather can soften, crease, darken, abrade, fade, or otherwise respond to handling and environment. Change by itself is therefore not evidence of quality.
Leather is affected by friction, oils, moisture, light, temperature, humidity, storage conditions, finishing, and care. The Canadian Conservation Institute documents the many ways leather surfaces can change over time, including abrasion, fading, staining, deformation, weakening, and chemical deterioration when exposed to unsuitable conditions (Canadian Conservation Institute, 2018).
I think that distinction matters because the word patina is sometimes used to romanticize almost anything that happens to leather. I do not believe every scratch automatically improves a handbag, and I do not think poor storage, excessive fading, drying, cracking, staining, or severe abrasion become desirable simply because they occurred over time. Care still matters, particularly when the goal is to keep an object in use for years.
What interests me is something more restrained. I like the possibility that an object can remain worth keeping even as it gradually stops looking exactly as it did on the day it was purchased. Depending on the particular leather, finish, use, and environment, frequently handled areas may soften or begin to feel different from less handled surfaces, while subtle changes in sheen or colour may appear over time. The handbag may begin to carry small traces of the routines through which it has travelled.
How visible those changes become will depend on the actual leather and finish, which is why I do not want to promise that every Ruyi will develop one dramatic or predetermined type of patina. Leather does not age according to a marketing script, and I think the more credible approach is to acknowledge that different conditions, uses, and finishes will produce different results.
What I want is simply to leave room for the material to participate in time.
That matters because handbags participate in ordinary life much more often than they participate in carefully composed photographs. A handbag goes to work, waits under restaurant tables, travels through airports, sits on passenger seats, accompanies important occasions, and spends countless days being carried without anyone thinking particularly hard about it. If someone keeps a Ruyi for years, I do not expect every one of those years to remain invisible.
There is a difference between caring for an object and trying to freeze it in its original condition. I want someone to care for a Ruyi because they intend to keep it, not because they have been made to believe that the smallest evidence of use will somehow destroy its worth.
That difference has changed the way I think about longevity as well.
Longevity is sometimes imagined as the ability of an object to remain visually unchanged for as long as possible. In certain applications, that may be exactly what someone wants. For XU, however, I am more interested in whether an object can remain worth carrying after it is no longer new.
A handbag can change without becoming disposable, and it can require care without requiring perfection. It can acquire evidence of belonging to somebody while remaining an object that person still wants to carry.
Full grain leather supports that philosophy for the Ruyi, but it does not create longevity by itself.
The lifespan and structural integrity of a handbag depend on much more than the leather category printed on a product page. They depend on how the material is selected, cut, reinforced, joined, stitched, supported, edged, lined, and connected to hardware. They depend on the design of load bearing areas, handle attachments, closures, construction methods, component quality, manufacturing consistency, and the way the finished object is ultimately used.
A beautiful piece of full grain leather can still become part of a poorly constructed handbag, which is why material specification and construction standard need to remain separate conversations.
This Journal entry explains why I chose this particular material for the Ruyi. The XU Standard explains what I expect from the finished handbag around it.
That broader standard extends beyond leather into structural reinforcement, stitching appropriate to the construction, hardware operation, plating and finishing, hidden components, interior construction, inspection, repairability, and the expectations XU is willing to stand behind after the handbag reaches its owner.
The leather is one decision within that larger system.
Separating those ideas makes both of them more meaningful because I do not need full grain leather to function as shorthand for luxury or quality. The finished handbag should be able to demonstrate its standards through the way all of its parts work together.
The material only needs to answer the question that belongs to it.
For the Ruyi, that question concerned the kind of leather surface I wanted to begin with. I wanted the grain to remain, and I wanted natural variation to be something the design could accommodate rather than something that automatically needed to be removed. I wanted the finish to support both the visual character of the handbag and the practical demands of an object intended to be carried, while avoiding the implication that one technical term could guarantee everything else about the product.
Most of all, I wanted the leather to participate in the same philosophy that shapes the rest of XU.
The historical references behind the handbag are not meant to become frozen reproductions of the past. They are researched, translated, edited, and allowed to become something contemporary. I think materials deserve a similarly thoughtful relationship with change.
Leather does not need to become visually perfect before it can feel refined, and it does not need to remain visually unchanged forever in order to remain valuable. The object can begin with some of the character of the material already present, while what happens afterward depends partly on the leather, partly on the way the handbag was constructed and cared for, and eventually on the life of the person who carries it.
That is why I chose full grain leather for the Ruyi. I did not choose it because it is the only leather capable of changing, nor because the words full grain automatically make an object well made. I chose it because, for this particular handbag, I wanted to begin with more of the material still there.