Hide and Seeker is a collaboration between us, Geordie and Eartha. We have a beautiful shop in Islington, Newcastle, Australia. It is a combination of Geordie’s leatherwork and Eartha’s vintage. It is a place we have made and love to be and we want it to be a nice place for people to come and hang out.

HIDE

The “Hide” aspect of Hide and Seeker is me, Geordie Malone. I make all our leather goods and accessories in my workshop out the back of our awesome shop. Sometimes Eartha helps me out with a few things, mainly tooling, but other than that it’s pretty much just the leather, my tools and me.

I try to source the raw materials I use as locally and sustainably as possible. My main leather supplier is one of Australia’s last remaining wattle bark tanneries and the canvas I use in our bags is bought from a canvas mill just 30 minutes drive from our shop. Not only do these two main suppliers offer beautiful raw materials, they are also great people to deal with.

The way I got into leatherwork was pretty simple. I’d been searching for the perfect wallet and couldn’t find it, so I thought I’d try making one myself. I got a few tips from some friends who worked with leather and I was off. It was also around this time that I started seeing Eartha. I wanted to impress her by making her the ultimate dream bag so I thought, “why not have a crack at making that also”.  From that point onwards, it all kind of flowed from there.

I’m constantly evolving what I create and how I make it. I love producing the range of goods for the shop and I change it up quite often as new ideas come to me.

I also do a lot of interesting custom work. The custom stuff can be time consuming so I’m not able to do as much as I would like to anymore but I still take on the odd project here and there.  

I really dig making the stuff I do. I want to create items that are beautiful, yet practical and I want them to be so well made that people will be able to pass them down to their kids.

Because all our leather goods are hand-made in our shop there can be a bit of a wait for some of the stuff on the website but I’ll make sure that wait is worth it.

Geordie

SEEKER

So the “Seeker” is me, Eartha. I collect vintage pieces from my travels here in Australia but these days most of my stuff come from my travels overseas.

The art of treasure hunting was bred into me from a young age. My sisters and brother and I grew up on an island with my parents. We were broke hippies, and I remember us going into town with my mum and going to the op shops to get us all clothes. I would watch her go through the racks and she would always manage to pull out something awesome. She has an amazing eye. I fell in love with the whole experience and as I grew I older I began treasure hunting myself.

I traveled all over Australia going to little op shops in the desert, garage sales in small country towns, markets and to theatres selling their costumes. Wherever there was a chance of finding some vintage gold, I would seek it out, taking my little boy Howlin’ with me, like mum did with us.

I would sell my finds at markets and online but then in 2013 the old Bowling Club where Geordie and I had our studios burnt down and I lost my whole collection. I had to decide whether to give up the hunt or start afresh. That is when I decided to start travelling overseas to hunt vintage. I was pregnant with our little girl, Emmylou, when Geordie and I decided to start looking for a shop. Shortly after she was born, so was Hide and Seeker.

I really don’t like the disposable nature of fashion nowadays. The shoddy fabrics that fall apart after one wash and clothes that make everyone look the same. When I’m looking for pieces I focus on finding quality natural fabrics and unique items. I also try to find a variety of sizes and styles so that everyone can find a piece in our shop.

So far we only have a small selection of the women’s vintage online, but we’re working to get some of the men’s stuff in there too. You can check out what’s there or you can pop into the shop and hit Geordie up for a cuppa.

Love

Eartha