XU began with a character in my name.
I'm Mila, and XU comes from 瑄 (xuān), the second character of my Chinese name, 芸瑄. I started XU in Vancouver after realizing I could name five European luxury houses and not one from China, and I wanted to know what Chinese design history might look like if it had kept evolving into the objects we carry every day. The RuYi is the first of those objects, and the Journal is where I show my sources, my decisions, and what changed along the way.
Mila
Handbags that begin with Chinese history
XU Atelier makes leather handbags that start with objects from Chinese history. Each one begins with research, carries forward only what's essential, and becomes something you can use every day. The first is the RuYi, shaped by the ruyi sceptre, whose name means "as you wish."
Research comes first
Every object starts with a historical source, studied closely enough to know what deserves another life.
Made in chapters
Each XU object begins with its own source, so the next bag may look nothing like the RuYi, and that's the point.
Built to a standard
Full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather, hand-carved detail, an inspection before every bag leaves us, and a limited lifetime structural warranty behind it.
New to XU?
Begin with "Why I Started XU," then follow the Journal wherever your curiosity goes.
A letter from Mila
My Wish
If XU works, what do I hope happens because it exists? I have spent more time on that question than on the usual one, which is what I want XU to become. They turn out to be different questions. One asks what kind of company I might build. The other asks whether anything changes because I built it.
Objects, ideas and philosophies from Chinese history mostly reach us behind museum glass, if they reach us at all. I would like them back in circulation, in the ordinary sense: in people's hands, and in their curiosity. What I want after that is harder to say, and took a whole handbag brand to explain.
Mila