Leatherworker helps transform jackets to bags, grief to healing

In the span of five years, I lost my father and my older sister, Liza. By September 2015, leukemia had taken my father’s once-strong body and years of cardiovascular disease had compromised his blood’s ability to reach his brain, dulling his once-sharp mind. He died a few months before our first child was born.

When I visualize my father, he is often wearing his leather jacket; brown, butter-soft and worn so well that the zipper pull was replaced with a metal key ring. After he died, my mother gave us the jacket for my husband or, eventually, our son. But it hung alone in our dark coat closet for several years. The style was too old-fashioned for my husband and the jacket outweighed our son. Still, I felt badly every time I opened the closet and saw the jacket hanging alone.

Liza’s well-being deteriorated in the years after our father died. In October 2020, she died by suicide after all of her mental, physical, financial and relational struggles culminated into what was truly the perfect storm. It was not exactly sudden; for a few years before she died, I dreaded the phone call, though I was powerless to stop it.

There was a lot to go through. I nearly buckled under the weight of my grief. Also, quite literally, an enormous truck unloaded the contents of Liza’s storage unit into my garage. The space was packed with boxes of records, furniture and the 200-year-old baby grand piano from my childhood home.

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I dug and sorted for weeks and eventually rented a commercial dumpster before we could park the car in our garage again. As I unpacked boxes of clothing, I found a leather jacket of Liza’s and I hung it in the closet beside our father’s. Liza’s was a darker leather and the style — the stronger shoulder silhouette and bold seams—was all my sister’s.

The story of how the jackets rose from the ashes and became handbags begins with Sweet Jane. Shortly after Liza died, I walked down Main Street and into Sweet Jane’s Designer Consignment Shop carrying a large bag in each hand; each stacked to the brim with designer men’s shoes. Liza was anything but stable when she died, but her designer shoe collection had always been rock-solid.

I hadn’t met AJ Setaro, the inimitable Sweet Jane, before and I felt shaky as I approached her. “My sister died and these are her things.” I said, curtly. She had the tact not to ask what happened or why my sister wore men’s shoes. Instead, she said, “Well, I love her style! I wish these were my size,” holding a pair of black Lanvin ankle boots.

I learned that Sweet Jane was a member of the same terrible club that I had unwittingly joined - she lost someone she loved tragically, too. Around the same time, she opened the shop on Main Street in Worcester. Relieved of the weight of the bags, I walked onto the sidewalk outside of the shop and smiled for the first in a while at Sweet Jane’s kindness and the vulnerability she let me see.

I warmed to Sweet Jane right away and stopped into the shop to visit often. She told me about Bill Laudon, a man who regularly repaired luxury leather goods for her at his shop Alan James Co., then located in the Worcester Public Market. I cannot say how the idea came to me, but I approached Bill about transforming the jackets into handbags. One for me and one for my mother.

One evening in February, I brought the jackets to Bill. His shop had high ceilings and industrial fixtures and reminded me of a backpacking outpost, except with luxury handbags and custom sneakers perched on the shelves. My 3-year-old daughter was with me and I was thankful for the red-bearded customer who distracted her with a round of peek-a-boo, allowing me to talk with Bill. He said he was sorry for my loss and I thanked him without mentioning that Liza died by suicide.

Leatherwork began as Bill’s hobby. Then, his younger brother died, and he opened Alan James Co. Bill loved the jacket-to-bag project and assured me, “Where there’s a Bill, there’s a way,” eliciting my too-loud fake laugh.

As we walked to our car, my little girl asked, “What’s that white up there — a star?”

“Yes, they are following us.” I said.

“Are they following us because they love us?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. My eyes brimmed with the hot tears I’d grown so used to.

I hoped to surprise my mother with her bag for Mother’s Day, but Bill was not finished. Mom’s birthday approached in July, but still no bags. I assured a fretful Bill that it was OK; there was no rush. We had a lifetime to miss our loved ones.

By mid-August, Bill had laid the jackets on his workbench at least 12 times, but each time, something pulled his attention away and stopped him from cutting. Once he lost his scissors, then found them on the shelf where they belonged.

Bill resolved that my mother and I needed to make the first cuts. “Geez, this sounds kooky, dukes,” he said. We didn’t think so. My father and sister were both as loud and outspoken in death as they were in life. That week, I cut one sleeve off Liza’s jacket and my mother cut one sleeve off of my father’s.

When Bill told me the bags were complete, I rushed to his shop on my lunch break. He ceremoniously unveiled them from their dust bags and stood silently smirking as I discovered each exquisite detail and gasped. There was a houndstooth interior pocket made from Dad’s inside breast pocket; one bag was lined with Liza’s silk scarf. One bag is handsome and classic, like Dad. The other is like Liza, fierce with unexpected beauty.

The universe keeps reminding me that there are slivers of light in the face of unrelenting darkness. I used to roll my eyes at any statement beginning with “the universe.” But, like Bill and Sweet Jane, I have seen its work.

Abigail H. Salois lives in Holden with her husband, two children, and a rescue hound named Steve. You can find Abby on Instagram @mourning_runs where she contributes to a dialogue about suicide loss through running and writing. Alan James Co. is at alanjamesco.com and @alanjamescompany on Instagram. Sweet Jane's Designer Consignment is at 120 Main St. in Worcester and @shopsweetjanes on Instagram. 

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Carrying On: Alan James' leatherwork helps author to heal