For over 40 years, w.kleinberg has been offering a made-to-measure leather experience
In an era of fast fashion and mass production, there’s something almost radical about a belt that takes days to make, especially one where 15 pairs of hands touch every stitch, buckle, and edge. But it’s something that happens at the w.kleinberg workshop on Collier Road every day.
William Kleinberg’s love of leather began with an alligator leather wallet he received as a child living in Montgomery, Alabama. “I loved the look and feel of it,” he says. That early fascination stayed with the University of Alabama graduate as he searched for a business idea post graduation that didn’t require substantial start-up capital. The aha moment came during a belt shopping adventure, when he was searching for an alligator belt for himself and couldn’t find what he was looking for.
Kleinberg partnered with his girlfriend at the time, a scarf designer for Echo in New York, to create an alligator belt for women. She designed the buckles, while he arranged manufacturing. “It wasn’t even the right way to make buckles,” he laughs, remembering how green they were at the time…