John McDavid Lehman of R.B. of McD on Designing Handbags and Los Angeles Style

 

This is a question that I have given a lot of thought to as well as dedicating my career to properly addressing the mechanics of LA fashion and style. Obviously, a great deal of our fashion trends are dictated by our amazing but ever shifting weather. There is a looseness, a freedom to our fashion that you really don’t see anywhere else in the states. You see it a lot with the French, who like us are habitual rule breakers. Seriously, pockets of Silver Lake, Downtown, 3rd & Beverly feel like Paris in regard to day-to-day street style especially with the dudes. We get such a bad rap for being lazy which I find a tad insulting- we are just misunderstood, for there is a great deal of purpose and order to our style. We are deliberate with our details, but I can see how our overlapping of styles can be a bit confusing. Being a native I love to crossover, double breasts & blazers dressed down with relaxed tees or fitted button downs, raw denim and skinnies with everything, knit caps, and double monks. I consider this my uniform and a great deal of us have some sort of a variation on this uniform. Uniforms that we can work and play in, for who has time to go home and change with all of this damn traffic? These are a few of the elements that factor into our specific take on fashion.

 

 

 

Ha, I think it all might be unexpected! Of course I spend a great deal of time people watching. As a designer it’s most important to watch how folks “get down”, their movements, their fashion, where they are going…who they are with. Our bags are designed with this motion, this rhythm in mind. Aside from design, music is a first love of mine and I like to look at R.B. of McD as a piece of our soundtrack. As a people we move to a beat, that overly used word “swagger” sums up that personal beat or soundtrack. When designing a specific piece I like to incorporate a theme or soundtrack. Clearly our brand owners are not aware but each bag has a kind of self-imposed theme or leitmotif attached. When I see a dude walk by with a #2 tucked into his back pocket I hear The Walkmen’s “What’s In It For Me” playing in the background…and of course dude is walking in slow motion! All of our bags were forged by music. #5,Miles Davis “Sketches Of Spain”.

 

 

 

The numbers have a few different meanings. First and foremost they are a birthing order. I am a “third," John McDavid Lehman III and growing up sometimes my mom would just call me “Third” especially if she wasn’t pleased with me. At family events it was just kind of funny, all of these John’s running around with these different nicknames so I figured I would give my bags similar nicknames, 1,2,3, etc. I guess the second reason goes back to that good old LA “looseness”. For almost 7 years I worked at Junior Drake (another LA based handbag house) and each and every silhouette was named after a women, usually a mom, sister, or cousin but by year 4 we had run out of names…I am sure there is a Martha bag floating around by now. We shall never run out of numbers!

 

 

 

Of course that episode of “Friends” is my least favorite!!! I honestly don’t know what a “man-bag” is without using that show as a reference point. I was never a boy scout but I have always found being prepared important. I have way too much shit in my life that I need everyday and there is no way I could fit everything into a wallet. The formal hard and even the soft briefcase does not and will never fit into my lifestyle, to be honest our #3 was designed with men in mind. I needed something to carry my computer, my sketchbook, newspapers, iPad, flask, etc., and at the time I was lugging around my MacBook Pro 17” so my dimensions were specific to that computer. But of course now the #3 is considered a purse by many but I view all of our bags with the exception of our #5 (cross body) to be quite unisex!

 

 

 

EVERYONE! I would like to believe that our bags are for anyone that is quite comfortable with their sense of style. One must “feed” our bags, for even though I consider our bags fashionable they are not trendy…they are classic pieces that are meant to accompany your look, not define. My girlfriend always jokes that I need to create a set of tutorials a la American Apparel and their infinity scarves, “How to Wear the #2” or “Options for Wearing the #4”. But, what’s the fun in that? I am not interested in telling folks how to dress, I am just interested in helping them maintain their fresh!