Where buckling up means letting loose

I’m the proud owner of a new belt, a narrow strip of blue tooled leather that was stamped, holed, painted and burnished by own hands, and in just three hours.

I can’t take full credit for the entire effort, however, as the process was facilitated by The Guild Tel Aviv, which has been proud to call itself Israel’s only shoe-making and accessories design school for the last five years. Located in a nondescript building on Menachem Begin Boulevard near the main bus station, The Guild is a small but compact space where crafty types can fulfill their short-term creative urges or embark on longer classes — months or a year long — that can be the first step toward starting a business, whether as a shoemaker, handbag designer, milliner or textile designer.

“Lots of people have started businesses by taking a course here and then coming up with a brand,” said Oriel Sudri, manager at The Guild. “It’s the holy combination, to fulfill your design dreams and make money.”

I’m not sure I’ll ever embark on my own belt-making at home, but what appealed to me about the one-time evening course I took was its very brevity, and the fact that I walked out at 8 p.m. with a finished belt in hand.

Like all Guild courses, belt-making is taught by an established designer; our teacher was handbag designer Maya Shalev, who breezed in five minutes late with a friendly introduction. My fellow classmates were a mix: three art teachers from the south and center, one Tel Aviv emergency services worker, an English teacher from Haifa, and my friend, a graphic designer.

“I’m a romantic, I love the mix of people,” Sudri had told me earlier. “You’ve got your 60-year-old office manager and 23-year-old art student.”

As we began working, trimming the ends of the leather strip and fitting the belt buckle, Shalev’s helper worked the room, making sure we knew what we were doing. That was helpful, as I didn’t have a clue and Shalev was sticking close to the front of the room, talking to the art teachers about different design possibilities.

She took some time to show us the different stamping tools that can be used to create shapes in the leather, as well as paints and stains for sealing the leather, and beads that could be affixed along the belt’s length. It was a limited introduction, and while I was intrigued about using the stamping tools, I felt a little out of my element when considering how to approach the design of my particular leather strip.

The art teachers across from me got busy, as did the emergency services worker, stamping numbers into her leather with relish, but I went blank. Where were Shalev’s samples of belts? No video? Pictures?

“We fight the notebook method,” explained Sudri, when I asked about the lack of a lengthier explanation. “Our idea is that no one has any idea when they walk in here, but you start working right away, and then go home and do it there as well.”

Within the hour, I was stamping away, creating what someone in the class called a petit beurre design (after the tea biscuits) along the length of the leather, with alternate circles and stars holed through, and a stamped “Jessica” in the middle. It took me the better part of an hour to accomplish that, and I found myself hurrying to brush on the blue paint and make the final belt holes and loop toward the very end of the class.

If I’d had the time, I would have liked to learn how to cut leather string out of scrap pieces of leather, as Shalev was demonstrating to the art teachers, who had finished with time to spare. Maybe next time. I’d advise The Guild to consider working that kind of demonstration into the introduction.

That said, I finished just in time and was wearing my belt the next day. The buckle is slightly off center, and I could use some more holes to make it sit better, but there’s no equivalent to the pride one takes in one’s own handmade accessory.

Guild Tel Aviv, 25 Menachem Begin Boulevard, Tel Aviv