Jess Conti is the owner, maker, and creative behind Jess Conti Leather Goods. She has been sewing and crafting things by hand since she was a kid and learned how to sew from her grandmother who was a professional dressmaker.

After graduation from UCSB she decided that she couldn’t really get used to the idea of sitting behind a desk staring at a screen. She took a part time job working for a professional tailor. While she learned an immeasurable amount of skills in the position, it was really just not all that creatively exciting. It was during that time she began to play with leather as a medium.

Over the last six years, she has honed her skills as a leather crafter and worked to create distinguished classics and one of a kind functional pieces. She is drawn to the color and organic texture variations that come from leather and tries to use leather pieces that may otherwise be discarded or overlooked by emphasizing their unique qualities. Leather itself is distinct in that it has the ability to transform and age with use, becoming even better over time. She loves sharing her craft with people and knowing her leather goods are part of someone's everyday life. (She loves to imagine where in the world all of her leather goods get to travel!) To Jess, there is no greater compliment than seeing someone using and loving one of her original designs.

All of her leather goods and embellishments (metal or stone work, lacing details, etc) are created solely by Jess at her Santa Barbara studio. All of her patterns are original designs and each piece is cut by hand from full or half Cow, American Bison, or Deer hides. A combination of hand and machine sewing are used.