LEATHER | &kow | Andkow & Co.

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SBAEK

&kow craft shop is located in a quiet suburb of Siem Reap, Cambodia, where one of the great world heritage of Angkor Wat remains.

Cambodia has a traditional leather craft work which is called "sbaek" in (Cambodian) Khmer.

It is one of their traditional performing arts, that is the show of shadow puppets made by hard tanned cow leather. The performer uses beautifully decorated handcrafted cow leather “sbaek”.

Artisan tans a hardened leather and punching holes by using handmade knives and tools.

These shows which performers hold the shadow puppets over a light certainly has revived as native Khmer traditional arts along with Apsara dancing after a brutal civil war.

At &kow, we follow and adopt the traditional way as sbaek skills and techniques as the foundation and combine it with contemporary leather craftsmanship of todays.

music, taste, aroma...
Such senses can trigger your memories.
We add "fragrance holes" on our products.
Your touch to our leather products triggers your memories.

FRAGRANCE HOLE

Fragrance holes

A scent is the strongest humans’ connection to their memories.

There even such a story that an elderly man who can't even remember the faces of his family because of dementia could recall his past memory with the scents of the furniture or traditional items in his home he uses to live. What the mind forgets the heart remembers.

Do you have such an experience that suddenly you remember your past relationship with a scent of someone who just passed you by?

Or you can visualize when you were a kid with the smell of your home cooked meal.

Do you have such experiences?

The products of &kow has small air holes on a corner of each product that called fragrance holes.

You suddenly realize some special moments with the scent triggered you. And your memorable moment flashes as if you are back in time.

What if we can trigger supposedly coincidental experience with our intention a little bit.

We have designed them with the purpose to use such of our little magic.

The products absorb the scent while you use our trademarked fragrance balm when you do a treatment to your goods as you rub it into them.

Applying or putting on your favorite aroma oil or our balm in your goods.

AROMA BALM

Original fragrance balm

Cambodia has a traditional practice of medicine which is called "kru khmer".

Since Cambodia was used to be called Indochina and is geologically located between India and China, kru khmer was developed independently but was composed under the influence of Indian Ayurveda and Chinese herbal medicine.

&kow has developed the trademark aroma leather balm with Kru Khmer botanical co., Ltd. which produces SPA and aroma products based on traditional kru khmer.

Applying aroma-leather balm, which has human-skin-use quality that contains plenty of rich aroma of lemongrass and beeswax, to your leather products increase the tastefully rich texture and make the products last longer.

We deliver the nostalgia and the sentiment of travel emotions of Asia from Indochina where once called Oriental Paris, in the scent.

CHARACTER

Characteristic of natural vegetable tanned leather

<Durable and long lasting>

Natural vegetable tanned leather is extremely durable, and because of such characteristics, you may feel its coarseness and stiffness at first. However, the fibers get soft as you use the product regularly and gets to be fitted to you naturally.

As it does not have any plastic covered surface finishing it may get some scratches on usual wear and tear. However, if you use it with good care, you can enjoy it for more than 10 years.

<Tasteful and loveable wear and tear>
As a specific characteristic of natural vegetable tanned leather, it may get a suntan from natural sunlight and by absorbing oil or lipid, it color may get darker as time goes by.

By sunlight or friction heat, lipid of a leather comes up to the outer surface and polish the leather. The product will have a unique glossy texture because of such effect.

Our product does not only get old and worn out but it will set deepness in its taste and be flavorful as if the life of the owner of the product soaked into it and reflected on.

<Proof of nature>
Natural vegetable tanned leather is the most natural finishing of leather products. Since it is very close to natural state of it, wrinkles and scars, curtaining, veins, pores or so on can be left and visible.

<Natural stamp>
These so called natural stamps are not considered as simple scars but as a proof that the product is naturally made and the most attractive part of leather products.

As our natural vegetable tanned leather does not have plastic covered surface finishing, natural stamps are visible at its best form.

These are all unique and classy special features of these leather products. Each product presents its own individual characteristics that can never be duplicated or reproduced.

<Old scars>
The marks after a scar is healed. It often can be seen as the cows had been grown in free range farm.

<Tiger>
Left marks of stretching wrinkles or curtaining on neck or abdominal area.

<Veins>
Left marks of blood vessels.

<Pores>
Left marks of pores.

<Scabs>
Left marks of healed piercing scars or scabs.

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NOTICE

Characteristic of natural vegetable tanned leather

<Durable and long lasting>
Natural vegetable tanned leather is extremely durable, and because of such characteristics, you may feel its coarseness and stiffness at first. However, the fibers get soft as you use the product regularly and gets to be fitted to you naturally.