Our Story
Our Story
Handmade in Thomasville, Georgia. Built to be carried for years.
SouthLife Leather Goods is a small-batch leather goods company rooted in craftsmanship, creativity, and the belief that the things you carry every day should be made to last.
From our workshop and flagship store in downtown Thomasville, Georgia, our makers handcraft leather handbags, crossbody bags, wallets, belts, clutches, home goods, accessories, and one-of-a-kind custom pieces using quality leather and time-honored techniques. Many of our pieces can be personalized, making SouthLife a destination for meaningful gifts, including bridesmaid and groomsmen gifts, corporate gifts, graduation gifts, and personalized leather gifts for life's biggest occasions.
We also specialize in custom leatherwork and needlepoint finishing, transforming customers' needlepoint canvases and professionally tanned personal hides—including alligator, deer, cow, and other specialty leathers—into pieces designed to be used, carried, and enjoyed for generations.
And the best part? If you visit us in Thomasville, you can watch much of it happen right in front of you.
It Started With a Pair of Earrings
SouthLife's story began in 2010 with a simple gesture of love—and a little grit and persistence.
In the middle of an economic downturn, Heather mentioned to her husband, Kelly, that she wished she had a new pair of earrings to wear for Thanksgiving. Newly laid off and working with a tight budget, Kelly looked at a jar of spent .40-caliber shells sitting on his desk and had an idea.
That night, he stayed up crafting a pair of bullet-stud earrings by hand.
Heather wore them to Thanksgiving dinner the next day. By dessert, they had 25 orders from family and friends.
SouthLife was born.
What began with handcrafted jewelry made from reclaimed materials soon grew into something much bigger. Kelly's creativity eventually led him to leatherwork, where he began designing the timeless, functional pieces that would become the heart of SouthLife. Together they turned that creativity into a growing business, and spent nearly a decade traveling the country, exhibiting at trade shows and building wholesale relationships with retailers and destinations including Bass Pro Shops, the Grand Ole Opry, and Ryman Entertainment.
Along the way, SouthLife pieces have been carried and worn by artists including Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton, and Little Big Town.
Made Where You Can See It
In 2016, SouthLife opened its flagship store in Heather's hometown of Thomasville, Georgia.
We never wanted to create just another leather store. Walk through our doors and you'll smell the leather, hear the tools at work, and see our makers cutting, stamping, stitching, riveting, and finishing pieces by hand. Our workshop is part of our retail space because we believe customers should be able to see the people, materials, and craftsmanship behind what they purchase.
Today, SouthLife creates handmade leather bags and accessories for women and men, along with custom leather pieces, personalized gifts, needlepoint finishing, corporate gifting, wedding-party gifts, and specialty projects.
Some customers find us because they're looking for the perfect everyday leather handbag. Others send us a needlepoint canvas they've spent months stitching, bring us a hide from a memorable hunt, ask us to create gifts for an entire wedding party, or simply walk into our Thomasville store looking for something they won't find everywhere else.
That's exactly what we want SouthLife to be—a place where craftsmanship and personal stories come together.
Crafting More Than Leather Goods
One of the things we're most proud of is the SouthLife Maker Program, created to introduce the next generation to the art of American leathercraft.
Young makers learn far more than how to work with leather. Through hands-on experience and mentorship, they develop craftsmanship, customer-service skills, responsibility, confidence, and an understanding of what it means to make something well.
It's our way of helping preserve a craft we love while investing in the young people who will carry it forward.
Craftsmanship With a Greater Purpose
As SouthLife has grown, so has our understanding of the responsibility that comes with what we make and the materials and traditions that inspire us.
Our newest Conservation Collection grew from years of conversations about the declining populations of native species in the Red Hills region—particularly the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake. After years of customers asking us to create genuine rattlesnake leather belts and accessories, we began asking a different question:
Could we create something that celebrates this iconic species without contributing to its decline?
Kelly began working with photographers and designers to develop a pattern inspired by the distinctive markings of the Eastern diamondback. That design became the foundation of our Rattlesnake Collection, featuring belts and accessories made with custom-printed webbing that captures the character of genuine rattlesnake while offering an alternative to using the hide itself.
But we wanted the collection to do more than start a conversation.
SouthLife partnered with Tall Timbers, a nationally recognized research and conservation organization headquartered in the Red Hills region, to create an ongoing giveback campaign supporting conservation and research. A portion of the proceeds from pieces in the collection goes back to Tall Timbers, helping support the work being done to better understand and protect the landscapes and wildlife that make this part of the South so special.
For us, the Conservation Collection represents where SouthLife is headed: honoring tradition while thinking carefully about what we leave behind.
Made With Purpose. Made to Last.
More than 15 years after Kelly made that first pair of earrings, SouthLife has grown and changed in ways we never could have imagined.
We've received honors including Georgia's Small Business Rockstar Award and Thomas County's Small Business of the Year. We've shipped our work across the country, partnered with nationally recognized organizations, trained a new generation of makers, expanded into custom leatherwork and needlepoint finishing, and launched initiatives like our Conservation Collection that allow the things we make to support causes and places that matter to us.
We've watched SouthLife pieces become part of weddings, graduations, hunting stories, family traditions, everyday routines, and milestone moments.
But we're still doing what we've always done: making things by hand, one piece at a time, right here in Thomasville, Georgia.
We're grateful for every customer who has carried a SouthLife bag, given one of our pieces as a gift, trusted us with a treasured needlepoint canvas or personal hide, visited our shop, or told someone else about what we're doing.
Because SouthLife isn't really just a story about leather.
It's a story about making things that mean something—and making them well enough to stay with you for years to come.
Tune into our journey. Listen to our story on the Let’s Talk Thomasville podcast, and follow along with our latest adventures on our YouTube and podcast series Living the SouthLife, where we share behind-the-scenes moments from the SouthLife shop, the launch of our cupcake store, the renovation of Heather’s grandfather’s building downtown, and our upcoming second location.
