MEET THE OWNER

CLIFFORD NG WEE KIAT

Founder & Lead Crafter

Hi there!
Some of you have probably met me in person to discuss bespoke designs, shop for leather together or to collect your completed orders. I am the only person managing Cattlehide from marketing, designing, crafting, accounting and everything in between.

To share a little more about myself, I do have a full time job and I have been doing this as a home-based thing for several years now. I consider myself to be someone who can quickly pick up any tools and start to make something out of it. Some of my creative hobbies includes crafting, painting, sketching and photography. Some other things I find interest in would be running, exercising, personal audio, and watch collecting. Even with all these hobbies on hand, my ideal kind of day would be to go to some hipster cafe to just chill and watch something online (investing, food places videos, craft etc.), the internet is honestly a gift of this generation where we have the entire world's knowledge gathered and available in a click. Who knows, you might be able to find your inspiration online as well? 

I started leathercrafting all because of a video I chanced upon on YouTube by accident where someone made a leather iPad sleeve for himself from scratch. I went in for a full-on research on the tools required, leather types, estimated prices of these tools, and then shortlisted some leather shops in Singapore. Back in 2016, leathercraft was not a common hobby taken up by many as it was today. I remember leather were only sold in large portion, and for a new crafter, that was a pretty big commitment to store this roll of leather somewhere at home.

Knowing leathers were only available in large portion, I decided that I should make a wallet for myself, and then sell the remaining products away on a mobile platform called Carousell. There was so much more planning than i'd like to admit. After lots of product prototyping with foolscap paper and staples in my army bunk, collecting leather samples from local suppliers, calling several friends to ask how they think of the brand names, planning how the product photos would be taken and how the socials would be updated, I made the decision to execute this well established plan (I still have the plans typed and printed in colour, folder-ed up at home with leather samples stapled within)

I made a trip down to the leather suppliers one fine day and dropped several hundreds of dollars on leather and leather supplies with zero knowledge of leathercrafting and a strong belief in my plan. Things went really well upon launch and I sold more products that I expected. The best feeling was hearing how the customers loved the overall experience of the ordering process where they get updates of their craft being made from scratch and how well and user friendly the final product turned out to be.

(Cattlehide & I shall be termed "we" henceforth)

We have been improving ever since. Tools and threads were upgraded to the finest ones in the industry, we used superior quality leather from reputable tanneries for our crafts, and now we can even take on technically complex bespoke crafts like the long wallet with zips and expandable gusset!

We truly thank you for your interest in us and reading all the way to the end. We are constantly learning, improving and upgrading to bring exceptional quality handmade leather crafts to you. Your support greatly motivates and drive us to keep doing what we enjoy doing and we hope to have more Cattlehide products in the pockets of more people in the world!