Work with us
Eleven people work in the room above the shop in Osu. Three of those jobs are open.
The workshop
Eleven people, one room, above the shop
The workshop is the floor above the shop on Ninth Lane. It is quiet, it smells of hide and steam, and the radio is on. Everybody who cuts here was taught to cut here.
That takes two years. A new leatherworker spends them as an apprentice before a piece they have cut goes into the shop, and Kofi Mensah-Bonsu teaches it. He spent twenty-two years at a saddlery in Kumasi before he came, and he will have you cut the same panel until the edge is right.
Repairs are free for the first two years on anything made here, so the work comes back. You will open a box one morning and find a bag you stitched three years ago, and you will be the one who mends it.
Where the work happens
Above the shop, on Ninth Lane
Hides in from Kumasi on the left of the room, cutting in the middle, and the bench at the window where everything is finished.
Right now
Three jobs open
Write to hello@suede.com.gh and say which one. A paragraph in your own words is enough; nobody here has ever been asked for a covering letter in a particular shape.
Leatherworker
Full time
Osu
Two years' experience
Cutting and stitching bags, belts and small leather goods at the bench upstairs. You should have two years behind you and be able to skive and edge-paint without being watched. Everything here is hand-cut from full-grain hides, vegetable-tanned in Kumasi, and an Elmina Weekender takes the best part of a week.
ApplyTailoring assistant
Full time
Osu
Working beside Ama Serwaa Boateng on coats, trousers and the made-to-measure orders. Pressing, finishing and buttonholes to start with, then fittings and measurements once you have been shown how. Four to six weeks is what we promise on a made-to-measure piece, and this job is how that promise is kept.
ApplyClient care assistant
Part time
Saturdays included
Osu
Answering the WhatsApp and the email, booking repairs into the workshop, and telling somebody honestly when a bag cannot be saved. Saturday is the busiest day in the shop and the day the workshop takes visitors, so it is one of the days you would work.
ApplyWrite anyway
None of the three, and still keen?
Say what you can do with your hands and what you would like to learn. Two of the eleven people upstairs first wrote when nothing at all was open, and we kept the letter until something was.
Delivery
Accra and Tema by tomorrow
Two to four working days everywhere else in Ghana, five to eight across West Africa and seven to twelve beyond it. Free in Accra and Tema over GHS 800.
Returns
Twenty-one days to change your mind
Unworn, in the box it came in, and we pay nothing towards the post. Made-to-measure and monogrammed pieces stay yours.
Repairs
Two years of mending, at no cost
On anything made in the workshop. After the second year we charge what the materials and the hours cost, and tell you the figure first.