Jeld Atelier sounds like something that ought to already exist: a cultish brand with sultry, sacrificial rituals (or, fashion shoots) paid at the exalted shrine of leather. If ever there was a material that deserved such sacred devotion, Jeld Atelier’s founder has no doubt that the prehistoric appeal of garbing ourselves in the skin of others earns leather a spot at the top. As a fashion model himself, he knows very well what leather can do.

“Before I began modelling,” says Ibrahim Al Gharbawy, founder of Jeld Atelier, “I suffered a lot from body image issues because I was overweight. I was having a tough time at university because of that, so I began carrying a leather bag around with me even if it was empty, because it gave me confidence when I had zero confidence. It gave me the walk.”

More than just a walk, it was another rung in the ladder of a fixation Al Gharbawy began developing with the organic material, a fixation that culminated with his founding Jeld Atelier in 2025.
“I had been obsessed with leather for four years, but the triggering point for Jeld Atelier was cowhide,” explains Al Gharbawy. “I was in Khan El Khalili when I came across a cowhide duffel bag, and it was so alive and different, I bought it on the spot.”

Al Gharbawy took the bag with him wherever he went, including to his modelling shoots, which was where he began to notice that others were just as enthralled by the bag as he was. “At almost every shoot my bag would end up being used as a prop, because everyone thought it was so unique. It’s definitely a statement.”

It was from these encounters that the idea for Jeld Atelier began to take shape. As a model studying media in university, Al Gharbawy wanted to create a brand identity deserving of such a standout bag. “We have amazing leather products in Egypt, but I felt the creative direction behind the leather brands didn’t have today’s edge or today’s creativity. I wanted my brand to carry my aesthetics. I wanted it to be creative, sexy, playful, and edgy.”
Al Gharbawy decided to design his own duffel bag inspired by the one he’d found in Khan El Khalili that captured its spirit but also addressed its limitations. “The one I had bought lacked pockets and lining,” he explains. “It was a very basic duffle, and yet it was also very expensive.”

Functionality was also important. When he envisioned his clientele, Al Gharbawy imagined people sort of like himself: fashionable young creatives who might be on their way to a shoot and needed something that could carry an outfit or four. “Part of the reason I had been taking the bag with me everywhere was because it was perfect for shoots,” Al Gharbawy says, “and it was through these shoots that I saved the money to create Jeld Atelier.”

Al Gharbawy sketched a design and went searching across Cairo for cowhides and the artisans who would turn it into the bag of his desire. This was a journey that took him everywhere from family-run workshops in Giza to Robbiki Leather City halfway to Suez. In these eight months of searching and experimentation, Al Gharbawy made 22 samples, exhausting nearly all of his savings before finally arriving at the perfect product.
“I had zero money left for the photoshoot,” says Al Gharbawy. In addition to the signature duffle, Al Gharbawy had designed five other items in cowhide and brushed brass to complete Édition I, Jeld Atelier’s first collection: a card holder, a case, a clutch, a fold, and a compact duffel—but he had no money left to shoot them all. But, like the industry brainchild it is, conceived and encouraged and funded through the labour of fashion shoots, Al Gharbawy had a bank of photographer and model friends to rely on when it came time to shoot Jeld Atelier’s launch.

“The feeling was peak boldness and peak confidence.” Everything from the models to the ceramic tiles to the piano and even the paintings were straddled with leather and intimacy and immediacy, a sort of wild west-meets-murder mystery aesthetic, like The White Lotus if it had been filmed on a ranch. The centrepiece duffle bag, lost in all the leather, still manages to stand out to the right audience. “It’s not something you need—it’s something you want because you value leather and because you’ve got to have this piece right now.”

Part of the appeal to Jeld Atelier’s clientele is that each hide is necessarily one of a kind. Al Gharbawy plans to lean more heavily into this fact. “I like the idea of customization, of someone ordering something and I make it just for them.” Al Gharbawy has already done this for two customers, facetiming them as he went and sourced hides for their orders.

Now, as he puts together the next collection, he is considering how to more fully embody the concept of an atelier. “I have a few unreleased items like jackets, but I want to extend towards furniture,” he says. “I want it to be a leather atelier, literally a leather house. Everything leather.”

He expects the next collection to launch in May.