After taking the day off work, I embarked on my two hour drive over to the quaint town of Winter Park, FL. Winter Park is right outside of Orlando, and is definitely the neatest area I’ve seen in this state. It just has a very different vibe, and that’s probably due to it housing a lot of cool independently owned shops and restaurants. I wandered around for a few minutes looking for Suite 102. I got lucky that Mike Wilkie spotted me due to the Oak Street Bootmaker Trail Oxfords on my feet, or else I would of continued wondering in the complete wrong direction. He called me over and then invited me into the Makr Carry Goods studio. I walked in the door to hear the general hustle & bustle of a workshop. Three gentleman were sitting at work-benches working on wallets, card holders, and even some leather risers the Makr skate decks.
The first thing I noticed was the overwhelming (in a good way) smell of the Horween leather from the shop, and the fact that they were listening to Explosions in the Sky. I felt at home right away. I walked around the studio and shot a few photos of some of the bags that Jason has designed, some of this stuff is not out yet, and some of it is is already available at the Makr shop. The attention to detail in these bags surpasses anything I’ve seen before, and after sitting with Jason and viewing the design process – I have a whole new level respect for the products he’s creating. These bags are fine tuned, sample after sample, to be absolutely perfect. In the end product, it definitely shows.
I started chatting with Jason while he was working on designing something from his new line of products, and all I can tell you right now is that you should save your money. It’s really, really good stuff that is super efficient, and super simple. We were chatting about the time that goes in to running something like Makr, and as expected it’s a whole lot of late nights, and even more weekends spent in the studio. Which in this case, is not that bad of a place to be.
Thanks again to Jason and everyone else for having me out and taking the time out of their busy schedules to let me take photos, and chat with them. I’ll definitely be back soon.
