John Chapman Ltd, Materials. Manufacturing and Trade pages. Travel Luggage and Shoulder Bags, Sporting bags

We manufacture bags using traditional hand crafted skills. Our bags therefore look and feel different to mass produced items. Every bag is subtly different and has its own individual character.

Hand Cutting from Patterns		Hand Machining
	All our bags are hand cut from patterns, like a tailored suit. Each bag is in some way therefore unique.		All our bags are machined by hand, without using computerised controls. This requires highly skilled machinists with years of experience. The resulting effect is quite different to computer controlled stitching.

Hand Finishing		Quality Control
	Our leather fittings are made from tools specifically designed for John Chapman. Leather fittings are finished and edge dyed by hand.		Each bag is checked by our Head of Production. Her personal signature attests to its quality.

We can make bags from most commonly used bag materials including canvas, cotton canvas, tweed, suiting materials, leather and synthetics such as nylon. Please note that this does not mean that every such material is suitable for bag making.

We favour natural materials. Our most frequently used bag material is cotton canvas. This is a multilayered fabric comprising two layers of cotton drill with a bonded natural rubber core. This is a strong, waterproof and durable bag making material. We try to avoid Polyurethane (PU) bonding, a cheaper process which produces a brittle and less durable fabric and which research has shown potentially to generate carcinogenic traces.

We also typically use multilayered and bonded tweed and suiting materials, constructed in a similar way to our cotton canvas to make them suitable for bag making. Natural materials like cotton canvas, tweed and woollen suiting cloth are expensive but they look, feel and age quite differently to synthetics, which is why we prefer to use them.

We also make bags in leather. This is not the heavy, stiff leather used for traditional briefcases but a softer leather suitable for our machinery and often found on holdalls, shoulder bags and handbags.

We stock a small range of synthetic nylon fabrics, which we can source in numerous colours. This is generally used for washbag linings, sports bags and more functional styles like boot bags and car luggage.

We stock a range of cotton canvas colours, many dyed exclusively to our own specifications. We can also source other colours subject to minimum order volumes. The colours set out below are normally stock colours.

We favour solid brass fittings, wherever possible sourced from UK suppliers. We can also specify a nickel plated solid brass finish. This ensures that our hardware does not pit or rust. Cheaper alternatives sourced from low cost suppliers often contain impurities, which give the hardware a pitted and uneven finish.

We favour a traditional 100% cotton military grade webbing. This is made on a shuttle loom and the original weave was specified for parachute webbing in WW2. Although much more expensive than most other synthetic and cotton alternatives, this type of webbing is uniquely hard wearing. We stock numerous colours and sizes.

We stock three leather colours: Papaya, a light brown; Old Australian Nut, a dark brown; and Dark Havana, which is effectively a black colour. This leather is a semi bridle quality which we have found over the years to be durable and non-marking with a nice patina which improves with age. We also stock matching leather piping and binding.

FISHING BAGS, GAME BAGS, HOLDALLS, RUCKSACKS, MESSENGER BAGS, HANDBAGS, BRIEFCASES, CARRY ON BAGS, SUITCASES, HAND LUGGAGE, TOTES