Marden is an English leather goods house rooted in the South Downs of Sussex.
We believe the things you carry every day should be made to last by people who know how to make them well.
That knowledge is passed from hand to hand. Marden’s founder Rhianne Jacklin learned hers at West Dean College in Sussex, which was founded for that very purpose. Its founder Edward James wrote to Aldous Huxley in 1939 fearing that the techniques of craftsmen would be lost after the war. His answer was to turn his estate into a place where they could be preserved and taught - the college opened in 1971 and still teaches in that spirit.
Every Marden piece is cut and finished by hand in our atelier using methods that have changed little in generations. Our leather comes from the Badalassi Carlo tannery in the hills between Pisa and Florence, where Minerva hides are slowly tanned with natural bark extracts. We choose its colours from the English countryside and the turn of the seasons. Every supplier we work with is paid a fair price for their craft, from the tannery in Tuscany to the paper makers in Japan.
