Embroidered initials or a personal message: the quiet art of personalising a bag

They say you can tell a fine piece by what it keeps hidden inside. Long before labels and logos, there were embroidered initials: stitched into the corner of a handkerchief, beneath a collar or across the linens of a trousseau, to say to whom the things that truly mattered belonged. At Leslie Sulman, we embroider for the very same reason: so that between a bag and the woman who carries it, there is a bond that no one else shares.

The initials LS are embroidered in gold thread, stitch after stitch, following the path of the needle.

Embroidery as a bond

A personalised bag does not begin with a pattern, but with a word entrusted to us. A first name, two initials, the name of an island or a phrase that means nothing to the rest of the world. In our Paris atelier, the machine embroiders only one bag at a time, and that rhythm is no constraint at all: it turns every creation into a conversation.

“I do not simply sell personalisable bags: every embroidery is a personal story someone has entrusted to me.”
Leslie Sulman

Embroidered initials, from the trousseau to the handbag

For generations, embroidering initials was among the very first skills taught to young girls. They practised on samplers, those cross-stitch alphabets on which every letter lined up in red across the linen, before marking the linens of their own trousseau: sheets, towels and handkerchiefs received the bride-to-be’s cipher, her initials interlaced, which also made it possible to tell her linen from everyone else’s. The monogram was born of that very simple need to say “this is mine”, before becoming, on travellers’ trunks and in the great houses, a mark of elegance with an etiquette all its own. Monogram etiquette has since relaxed a great deal, which leaves all the more room for the woman who chooses her own letters.

Today, embroidered initials have left the linen cupboard for the handbag. On our Balagan II in lycra, lurex or bandana print, up to three letters nestle inside, a bag with initials that only its owner need know about. On the satin Knot Bag, by contrast, two initials interlaced in our calligraphy are worn on the front, in gold thread, like a seal: a monogram bag in the truest sense, where the emblem of the trousseau has become a signature.

LS monogram embroidered in calligraphy on the navy satin of a Knot Bag

A word, a destination, a mantra

Sometimes two letters are not enough. The terry Balagan welcomes the name of a faraway hideaway, a first name or the memory of a summer; the terry Balagan II, fringed or reversible, can also carry a mantra one will take great pleasure in parading. On the bandana bag, the message curves in an arc around the rosette of the print, as though it had always been part of the design. Twenty characters is not a great deal, and it is exactly enough to say what matters. The thread is chosen from sixteen colours, from cream to fuchsia, and for every shade of bag we suggest a selection that suits it. Each piece then becomes one of a kind.

Protective eye in white, turquoise and midnight-blue terry appliqué on blue terry, its centre embroidered in gold thread

Appliqué, or the relief of materials

The Balagan was born of a longing for colour and pattern. To bring them to life on terry, we chose appliqué: where a fine thread would lose itself among the loops of the fabric, a piece cut from a contrasting terry is laid on top in relief, edged with close stitches, and plays with the material rather than fading into it. Hibiscus, seashells, sand dollar, palm tree, daisy or protective eye: each motif lends the bag its texture, its contrasts and a little of the summer it promises.

Gold thread and calligraphy

For the evening, embroidery turns precious. On the silky satin of our evening bags and our Knot Bags, the gold thread is worked point by point, in straight stitch, in the manner of hand embroidery: a message traced in our calligraphy, initials interlaced into a monogram, or a single motif, a palm tree, a seashell, a sunset, which is all it takes to turn a small embroidered handbag into a jewel.

From the computer to the atelier

Every design begins on Leslie’s screen, where she draws its letters and the path of the needle, stitch after stitch, before the machine sets it into the fabric.

Initials nestled inside a slouchy bag, a message curling around the rosette of a bandana bag, a motif set in relief on terry or a gold-thread monogram on the satin of an evening bag: at Leslie Sulman, embroidery is never one ornament too many. From initial embroidery to the most intimate of messages, it turns a personalisable handbag into a personalised embroidered bag that belongs to you alone, and that one would recognise among a thousand. They say no one keeps a bag for a lifetime. Those that carry a chosen word are often the exception.

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