Old Leather Jackets...New Leather Pocketbooks!

If you have an old, out of style leather jacket that has definitely been around the block (or the city...or even the county) more than a few times, it may be a little tempting to kick it to the curb and buy yourself a brand spankin' new one.

Before you do the deed, you may find it entirely satisfying to tear into it with your scissors as Shannon South does with everything in her San Francisco reMade USA workshop.

Old leather jackets and scrap fabric pieces are reborn into really fabulous looking pocketbooks that capitalize on the stylistic details of each garment.

Maintaining as many pockets, lapels, seams and zippers from the original "donor" as possible, South's collection of bags are entirely diverse and always one of a kind.

reMade USA offers quite an interesting selection of ready to order bags in popular designs such as Bernal ($465), Sonoma ($395), and Sutter ($125) -- each is hand lined with a contrasting scrap of vintage fabric and guaranteed to NOT be a clone of what someone else is carrying.

If you'd like a $20 discount on your purchase price, just mail reMade USA an old leather jacket from your personal collection and they'll turn it into a bag based on one of the designs in their current collection.

If you thought that the old-to-new 'trend' appealed just to greenies and bohemian hipsters, think again -- Barney's New York and San Francisco caught wind of the reMade USA line and will be carrying them in their stores during the upcoming 2009 holiday season!

Now, what can we turn old leather shoes into...