Our Neighbours — Taylor Yates 🤍

Taylor Yates is a brand very personal to founder Karen and and her daughter, Ellen. Karen and Ellen are a mother/daughter team designing sustainable, luxury leather handbags that are hand made using British leather in the UK. When Karen wanted to get Ellen a handbag for her 18th birthday, and not being able to find anything that felt like real, soft leather whilst also being understated and modern, they have decided to design their own collection.

Karen grew up in Lancashire in the North of England, and thought she was destined to work for other people, however her life has taken her from Warrington, to London, to Northern Ireland, and from working for a large manufacturing company to running a family business.

Karen realised that her Nana, Alice Wells, had showed her another way. She started in service in Yorkshire in the 1920’s, but went on to run 2 or 3 businesses from her home. Karen spent every summer there as a child, and sometimes accompanied her Nana on buying trips to the wholesalers, Mr Leeman’s in Manchester.

“It takes determination, resilience and a lot of hard work to be in any business today and I was reminded of the strong Lancashire women that guided me and gave me the freedom to choose. The bags are fittingly named after those great women in my family.“

Did you know that Taylor Yates started upstairs in Makers House in 2018 here at the Designerie? After having a pod there for a year, they quickly outgrew the space and moved into their own studio space in 2019, in the adjoining store to us.

If you’re in store, make sure you pop in, say hello to the team and check out this amazing business 😍