Tangible Care Creates A Tender Spin On Leather Craftsmanship
Handled with care in every step of the way.
WHO’S BEHIND IT: Tangible Care is the brainchild of the fast‑emerging artist Cally Tan, a textile design graduate of Tama Art University in Setagaya, Japan, who’s known for putting a quietly humorous spin on ordinary, everyday objects such as water bottles through textile manipulation. In her hands, a mini speaker, for example, gets adorably anthropomorphised with the addition of a beaded mask – cute and clever.
Artist Cally Tan’s label Tangible Care brings a childlike joy to accessories with playfully designed slippers and bags.
THE MERCH: The 26‑year‑old Tan started Tangible Care last September as a way of returning to the act of making. Though trained in textile design, she had mostly been creating art instead of products, and was starting to feel burnt out by the art world and wanted to explore making other kinds of objects. While the label is still in its infancy, its range of objects have been impressively sophisticated: the likes of clog‑shaped mules and crossbody bags all made using vegetable‑tanned leather and embroidered with childlike motifs. Every piece is a labour of love (the bags, for example, come with rolled leather handles and hand‑painted edges) – Tan’s way of challenging today’s flippant consumerist culture. “I think there’s a real problem with the way we consume things today. We often treat everyday products as disposable, contributing to a culture of irresponsible consumption. My grandmother’s Peranakan shoe collection stands as a testimony to the long lifespan of objects made with love, and to the reciprocal relationship between object and user. This inspired the name “Tangible Care”: the idea that care can be felt through the details of a finely crafted product and that this physicality, in turn, can bring love and care back into a person’s life,” she says.
Each piece is crafted using vegetable‑tanned leather and can be customised with quirky beaded pixelated motifs, lending a fun new perspective to leather craftsmanship, which can often be seen as a masculine craft.
THE CUTE FACTOR: A sense of childlike joy punctuates the products by Tangible Care – note the rounded silhouette of its mules, and the playful use of colour such as purple and green, for example. Customers can also choose from a rotating and irreverent selection of beaded pixelated motifs to customise their purchases – from a Tabasco sauce bottle to calico kitties to tomato vines (see above). Yep, kewt.
WHERE TO FIND IT: DM Tan at @tangible.care on Instagram – she takes custom orders, with prices starting from $160 for a pair of shoes and upwards of $200 for a bag.