Maker | Freemans Collective
Ben Ashby
Who are You?
Freeman’s Collective is a creative commune emphasizing active lifestyles and adventure travel through leather goods, woodcraft & outdoor apparel. We are the product of our California environment; as creators, artists, athletes, and activists we seek to experience the world around us for its true and natural value. Our mission is to bring that world to life through the stories that we share and the products that we make.
FMC promotes the sustainability of precious natural resources and the enjoyment of wilderness areas by donating a portion of proceeds from every order to the US National Parks Service every year. As an artist collective, we also offer artwork and pieces handcrafted from a network of personal relationships we’ve developed with local artisans.
What do you Make?
We make American hand-crafted leather products using antique vegetable tanning methods; hand-stitching, hand-staining, and hand-cutting every leather piece to order. Our threads are made from materials organically grown in the United States. We create outdoor apparel that’s designed and screen-printed at our shop in Newport Beach, CA as well as provide quality outdoor gear for adventure enthusiasts.
Why do you Make?
It’s simple. We make to better ourselves and with each product or project we improve our methods and techniques to bring quality crafted goods to our community. We create to reflect our natural surroundings and to explore further reaches of our environment. Our passion is our trade and we want nothing more than our products to allow our community to enjoy an active outdoor lifestyle. If we can give our community adventure, we’ve made our mark.
Why is it important to support makers?
It’s important to support makers because it is crucial to developing local communities and supporting the craftsmen way of life. It’s a wonderful thing to see a once fading trade revived with a new breath of life from the support of people like you. It’s a symbiotic relationship. We support the lifestyle our community lives for and they support the trade that we work to perfect.
Why keep Main Street America alive?
Because this is America and there’s no better answer than that.
We would also like to offer 10% off any purchase of our leather products with the promo code for the LIVEFOLK promotion:
10% OFF AMERICAN CRAFTED LEATHER COLLECTION CODE: LIVEFOLK10