I’m writing this somewhere between flights, somewhere between time zones, somewhere between exhaustion and obsession.
This trip wasn’t supposed to happen. Not now, at least. By this point, production should have been underway, leather cut, bags assembled, boxes packed and en route to my warehouse in Los Angeles. Instead, I’m boarding a plane to Guangzhou to solve production issues.
Guangzhou — The Problem Beneath the Surface
Our first production run was supposed to begin in mid-July. The leather had arrived, everything looked perfect at first glance — deep, rich hides, exactly as we envisioned. But upon deep inspection, the truth surfaced: nearly 80% of it was unusable. Surprising since the tannery is incredibly reputable and global - supplying to Italy even. But this is a (now known) feature of oil wax leather.
It gave me flashbacks to buying meat from the local asian supermarket growing up. On the surface, you see the perfect marbling, the glistening surface and the promise of quality. But then you open the pack, and underneath, it’s of significantly lower quality - a lot of times mixed in with older meat, full of fat but latent deteriorated quality nonetheless. That’s effectively what happened to us. Markings on the production leather, inconsistent hide thickness, finishing of the oil wax leather coming off. It'll cost time and money, but we needed to fix this now.
Weeks slipped by as we scrambled to find a suitable replacement — requesting sample hides from different LWG Gold certified tanneries, reviewing swatches and finding our desired finish, thickness and materials report characteristics. Waiting for sample hides to get made, reviewing hide samples and testing in new samples - fighting to protect the standard we promised ourselves. Samples were received and the factory is in process of making updated pre-production samples. But I could not sit idly abroad and wait for the worst case scenario to play out - that none of these hides are suitable - so I'm going to Guangzhou myself for an in person inspection.
This isn’t just about materials. It’s about intent. About ensuring that every detail we put into KIMIAS matches the weight of what we’re building.
Shanghai — A Search for Better
After my initial factory visit in Guangzhou, I’ll head to Shanghai for the All China Leather Exhibition, one of the most prominent (if not the largest) international leather trade shows. It’s where suppliers, tanneries, and craftsmen from all over the world converge. Again, we found some replacement suppliers, but I have trust issues. So time to line up some more.
For KIMIAS, this is more than sourcing leather. It’s hunting for partners who understand nuance — who know that luxury leather isn’t about loud logos but about how its produced, how it feels in your hands and how it ages with you.
Shanghai will also be a checkpoint — a place to map out the future beyond this first launch. Exploring new leathers, understanding the industry better and developing relationships with suppliers from all around the world – including many of the top tanneries from Europe that are always looking to penetrate the massive Chinese market.
Seoul — The Dream in Motion
If everything aligns, I’ll fly to Seoul right after. It’s where we’re considering shooting part of the campaign. There’s an energy there that feels like KIMIAS — layered, borderless, deeply cultural yet unapologetically modern.
I don’t know yet what Seoul will hold. Maybe it’s a backdrop, maybe it’s a beginning. Maybe both.
That being said, my schedule is set up to be flexible - after the Shanghai Leather Expo, I have about a week of open plans. So if I need to return to Guangzhou, visit tanneries or otherwise be hands on with getting pre-production samples right, that's my upmost priority.
Between Worlds
This journey isn’t glamorous, especially in the early stages. It’s not the tidy founder narrative people expect — the one where things click neatly into place, where problems get solved behind closed doors and a beautiful rollout occurs. It’s messy. It’s exhausting. It’s unpredictable. It's real.
But somewhere in that mess, you create meaning. KIMIAS was never just about luxury bags or goods. It’s about a worldview: A gateway to reimagning how we define luxury, and in turn, the world. A gateway to a new kind of a world that values aptitude and execution, not old legacies having a chokehold on all of our futures. The promotion of the core that makes us human and satiates our existential needs: discovery, connection and communion. That also means doing the hard things yourself.
Right now, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Seoul aren’t just cities on a map. They’re fragments of a bigger story. A story about building something worth waiting for.
-JDK