ravjul bag charm / shell

The Ravjul Bag Charm is from Nurture, a collection about slowing down and finding comfort, and ravjul [Maltese for ravioli] are exactly what I reach for when I need that. I was eight or nine when I started making them with Mum. I'd roll the dough and cut the circles with a glass, then help her fold and close them. It's one of the few Maltese traditions that was passed down to me. Making the charm is almost the same. Cut, fill, fold and press. I fill the leather with wool felt, fold it and glue it closed, then recut the edge in scallops, the way you'd press the pasta closed with a fork. The leather is offcuts from bag production ~ too small for a bag, and too good for landfill. And if ravjul isn't your comfort food, it can just as easily be pierogi, gyoza or empanadas.

Shell is a slightly pink neutral, close to the natural colour of the hide, and it happened to look just like the inside of a shell.

~ Australian bovine leather made in Queensland, Australia

~ Each hide is natural, so every batch is a little different, with the grain and texture of the animal it came from

~ Filled with recycled wool felt

~ Available in ten colours: Black Rock, Red Rock, Peppercorn, and our custom colours Shell, Mist Blue, Wheat, Matcha, Passata, Fig and Almond

~ Gold-tone hardware

~ Small carabiner to clip onto your bag or keys

~ Custom simétrie eye charm

~ Made in small batches, so some pieces are ready to ship and others are made to order

~ Made by hand in our Brunswick atelier and with specialist makers in Reservoir and Ballarat

~ Comes packaged in a simétrie box

Size: W5.5cm x H9.5cm x D1cm

Shell leather is running extremely low. It's a custom colour that needs a minimum order to produce, and the numbers don't stack up for me to reorder it, so this is the end of the road for Shell. There's enough left for a few small bags, wallets and charms, but not enough for a Nurture Tote.