Bleu de Chauffe: How They Make the French Leather Bags American Men Love

AVEYRON, SOUTHERN FRANCE: Today, I’ve parachuted into Saint Georges de Luzençon (population: 1,584) to explore Bleu de Chauffe, the French men’s leather bag brand that’s taking America by storm. Not for their professional briefcases, but for their casual leather satchels and travel bags.

France might seem like a surprising destination for informal, workwear-inspired bags — you might associate the place more closely with luxury brands. But France has such a strong connection to workwear that the very term blue collar may have originated from the blue moleskin used to make traditional French workwear jackets. We call it the chore coat; in France, they call it bleu de chauffe.

So the founder, Alexandre Rousseau, joined me in the countryside to explain how he got men so comfortable with leather bags, how they interplay with the region’s rustic identity, and why these bags are made about as ethically as a leather bag can be — each by one single artisan from start to finish.

The Best Leather for Bags: Vegetable Tanned vs Chrome Tanned

The first stop was a big room where endless sheets of leather are stored after arriving from French tanneries. A prominent focus of the brand is the use of vegetable tanned leather — so, what’s that?

“Vegetable tanned leather is transformed by natural components like acacia, mimosa, and chestnut,” says Alexandre, contrasting it with the vastly more popular chrome tanned leather. Invented in the 19th century, chrome tanning makes leather much more quickly and cheaply.

“If we use vegetable tanned leather made by European tanneries, it’s more eco-friendly because there are many rules and regulations regarding water treatment, which ingredients can be used, and the way in which it’s produced,” he notes. “While it does use water, it’s treated and then sent back into the environment — no water is wasted.”

So, is “veg tanned” leather better? It’s very, very complicated. In addition to being cheaper, Chrome tanned leather is also more popular because it’s typically softer (making for more comfy footwear) and it’s easier to dye (most brightly colored leathers are chrome tanned).

The primary reason Bleu de Chauffe emphasizes veg tanned leather isn’t eco-friendliness — there are ways to make chrome tanning perfectly eco friendly, contrary to popular belief. The reason is that their bags are inspired by vintage leather bags used by metalworkers, postmen, fishermen, and farmers.

“They were only made in vegetable tanned leather simply because chrome tanned leather didn’t exist yet,” says Alexandre. “But it makes a leather that’s beautiful, sustainable, and above all, a leather that will last the customer for years and years.”

Clicking: How Parts of the Hide are Selected for Bags

“Clicking” is the process where a skilled leatherworker decides which parts of the hide are used for which parts of a product, be it a bag or a pair of shoes. It’s something of an artform that I’ve discussed as it related to footwear in a few of my other factory visits, like this trip to India’s Blkbrd Shoemaker.

A hide isn’t uniform at all: fibers are stronger or stretchier in different parts, some parts stretch in one direction and some in multiple directions. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can wind up with a shoe that sags in some places, is too weak at stress points, and doesn’t allow flexibility where it’s needed.

Clicking for bags has similar principles, but of course, it’s also totally different.

“We cut the bag’s flap at the center of the hide because we want that part of the bag to have as little stretch as possible,” says Alexandre. “We won’t use a piece from the edge of the hide, because it’s much stretchier. So we’ll use that part for a pocket or small pieces.”

How Bleu De Chauffe Makes Bags

What sets Bleu De Chauffe apart from most other bag makers is that the employees don’t have a “station” where they do the same thing all day long. Instead, each person knows how to make a bag from start to finish.

“The great thing about working here is the ‘soup to nuts’ approach — we get to do a bit of everything,” says bag maker Chérazade. “There’s real variety in the work, so we’re not doing the same task all day. It takes more skill, but it’s satisfying. We start with just leather, components, and tools, and piece by piece, we build the entire bag from the ground up.”

The workshop also looks over a vegetable garden where employees have access to fresh produce.

“We have a great view,” points out Chérazade. “We don’t have a big building in front of us blocking our view — this view of the hills and fields is really nice. And we have this vegetable garden available to us!”

Bleu de Chauffe’s Postman Bag

One interesting thing about Bleu de Chauffe is that this bestselling leather bag is not a recreation of a hundred-year-old bag for, say, a lord or a lawyer — a simple, working class Postman’s bag inspired them.

“The traditional styles were our inspiration, but they are not exact replicas,” says Alexandre. “We were focused on how the bag was made and the key elements of that classic workwear style, but we had to adapt it to fit modern needs. Back then, a postman used the bag to carry letters — it was a tool. Today, our tool is a computer, so the design has to evolve to include laptop compartments, for example.”

A criticism that someone might have of the Postman bag is that the edges of the leather aren’t finished; high end briefcases like Frank Clegg’s, for example, put a lot of work into burnishing the edges to produce a smooth finish. Bleu de Chauffe’s edges are “raw,” but it makes sense in the bag’s context.

“With traditional French worker bags, the idea was to cut the leather and leave the edges unfinished, because finishing adds cost,” explains Alex. “These bags were made to be practical: functional, durable, and easy to repair. Adding unnecessary design or decorative finishes would have gone against their purpose.”

Bleu de Chauffe’s Business Musette Bag

We also took a quick look at another bestseller that is geared to a slightly more professional customer: the Business Musette bag. Appropriately, while Bleu de Chauffe sells a range of leather briefcases for dressier environs, it’s the cotton Musette that outsells them all as their most popular office bag.

“It’s actually based on a traditional fisherman’s bag, but modernized in a few key ways,” says Alexandre. “We have added handles and a laptop compartment inside, where you can put your computer. We also did finish the edges here, not only because they look nice and have a nice design, but it makes your bag more durable, especially when it’s cotton.”

Wrapping Up

My tour ended when lunch arrived: a big stack of sandwiches made from baguettes, of course. I made sure to visit the vegetable garden to pick some lettuce to stuff inside as well.

I want to give a big thankyou to Bleu de Chauffe for showing me their workshop. For the record, I wasn’t paid anything for this — if you check out my old review of their Postman bag, you’ll see proof I was a fan of their stuff long before I had this chance to visit them.

In fact, it was my love of their gear that led me to reach out and ask if they’d let me stop by while I was in the country. I’m delighted they made the time.