“It is all down to attention to detail and everything we do is based around that.”

Gary Billingham is demonstrating how the 28 pieces which make up an Ettinger wallet are cut from leather using a hydraulic press by the small team at one of Walsall’s last remaining leather goods factories. The edges of the pieces are thinned down so they are ready to be turned, glued and stitched together by hand.

Billingham has been at the factory near Birmingham since the 1980s, when “there were three pages in the Yellow Pages” business directory listing leather factories in the West Midlands town. “They were everywhere. It has gone from that to about five factories. It is more like a cottage industry.”

Gary Billingham, factory manager at Ettinger, a family-owned luxury leather goods maker based in Walsall.…