LAYERxlayer is a hard brand to pin down. Even with the seemingly endless number of style niches and sub-genres out there, there’s still no one in which the label is a perfect fit. Everything is made in the USA, and almost entirely from American components, but there’s nothing remotely Americana or capital H Heritage about any of it. The pieces tend to be heavily designed, sometimes to the point of bordering on architectural, and yet they’re still tough and functional, and not at all designer-y. Even beyond their appearance, there’s something else about their bags – something more intangible, a little tougher to identify – that just feels different.

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While at NorthernGRADE this past September, I had a brief but very interesting conversation with Jen Guarino, president of J.W. Hulme, about how she felt the concept of patriotism was changing. We both agreed that the term had long ago been high-jacked and politicized by special interest groups. However, she maintained that in the last few years, there had been a marked increase in the number of Americans who chose to define patriotism not by politics, but by deeds. She believed that these Americans were showing their love for their country by actively supporting domestic manufacturing and business. As someone who has struggled to reconcile the current prevailing definition of patriotism with my preference to buy American, this idea had a lot of appeal to me. I liked thinking there were other ways to show my allegiance, beyond the typical and familiar. And this, in part, is why I have taken such a shine to New York’s LAYERxlayer (kind of a roundabout way to get there, but we still reached our destination).

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