These Custom Leather Accessories are Hand-Crafted on a North Dakota Ranch (2024)

Max Robison can transform any vision into intricately tooled leather. His bespoke accessories—belts, chaps, bags, jewelry, even shoes—are as unique as the individuals who commission them. (Do you want a syringe holster for dosing cattle or a band for your smartwatch? Either way, Robison Custom Leather’s got you.) Robison, who honed his skills in Texas and Montana, crafts each item on Dry Creek Ranch outside Amidon, North Dakota, a remote outpost in the state’s southwest corner where cows outnumber people.

What was the first leather item that really spoke to you?

I’d have to say a saddle I had when I was a little kid. I grew up on a sheep ranch in Newell, South Dakota. I was 6 or 7 years old, and I had a brother five years older than me, so my folks would send us out on ponies to keep an eye on the sheep. The one thing I always wanted was a saddle, because we rode around bareback all the time. So when I finally ended up getting one, I was pretty proud of that.

How does a commission become reality?

Somebody sends an order, and they might have a reference photo. I sit down and draw a pattern on tracing paper and send that as a proof for the customer. Once they approve, I’ll use a little stylus to trace all of that onto the leather. I carve it in with a knife, and then I’ll go along and bevel everything. That raises the lines and creates depressions so you get the 3D feel of it. After that, I’ll either oil or seal the piece with some leather sealant and then go over it with an antiquing paste to highlight all the lines and areas that were shaded, just to make it pop a little bit more.

Has a client’s request ever stumped you?

Some projects that people pitch me are things I’ve never done before. A friend of ours went down to Louisiana and shot a couple of gators and wanted a laptop case made out of alligator. I hadn’t done much with bag-making, so that was a bit of a process, a learning curve. But I like the challenge of doing something different, just to see if I can. Sometimes I have to walk away and do something else for a little bit. And then when I come back, I have a fresh perspective.

Take us into your workspace.

It’s an old grain-storage building. I remodeled it quite a bit and use it strictly for the leather shop now. There’s a woodstove in there, a large cutting table in the middle, and all my sewing machines are down one wall—and my tooling bench and where I need to lay things out. The shop’s kind of in the middle of the farmyard, so I can look out my window and check on the cows in our calving pasture and keep an eye on everything. We run a registered Red Angus operation as well. Typically, I’ll spend at least 40 hours a week in the shop.

That’s a lot! With two full-time jobs, plus two young sons, how do you keep the balance?

There’s a corner for my kids in there, so if they want to paint or do anything like that, they have their own space. And my wife’s transitioning from a traveling job to being on-farm full-time now, so she helps me, cutting out chaps and other things. So we get everybody involved. That’s kind of how I grew up, always being involved, always having a job and learning responsibility. Our boys come with us when we go move cows. We do everything on horseback, so they get to see how we do things. We have three bottle calves, so that’s their job; in the morning and the evening, they’ve gotta go out and feed the bottle calves. Our oldest is in the “why” stage, so it’s a good chance for us to explain things to them.

What attributes does a leather worker need?

I’d say some patience and a little bit of problem-solving. Imagination for sure. And not to be self-limiting, not telling yourself, Well, I can’t do that. You just have to be tenacious and figure it out. All you have into it is time. The materials aren’t terribly expensive.

That’s what goes in. What do you get out of it?

When I’m in the shop, I don’t have to worry about anything else. It’s pretty relaxing that way. I can just shut everything else off and focus—and I love knowing that I can produce something that’s going to last for years.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.