Dark Star Leather features many one-of-a-kind designs

Dark Star owner Toyo Gilman started the business with his boyhood friend, the late Richard (Rick) Leece. They met in the mid-'60s while both were students at Doolen Middle School, teaming up to use their mutual leather-working hobby to create sandals and belts to sell to friends.

They were still making sandals and belts and a few other items when they decided to go into business together in 1972. Four years later, they had expanded their inventory, moved into a larger location — near the University of Arizona's main gate on Park Avenue — and changed the company's name from Caleatus Leather to Dark Star Leather.

The new name came, Gilman said, from the big discovery of black holes, referred to as "dark stars."

Gilman, Dark Star's chief designer, and his staff — manager Susan Gersch and craftsman Chuck Maultsby — create one-of-a-kind products from a variety of leathers, including cowhide, reptile skins (mostly ranch-raised), buffalo and ostrich.

Gilman designs everything, drawing his designs onto a cardboard template and transferring them to leather. Maultsby helps cut out the designs, and Gersch does the inlays and gluing. Gilman and Maultsby then do the final stitching and assembly.

Each piece is a work of art featuring a variety of Southwest motifs inspired by the desert, Indian designs and animals. Some have the design tooled into the leather; others have inlays of different types of leathers, in natural colors or painted.

Dark Star offers handmade purses, briefcases, wallets, belts and keychains. There are also checkbook, journal and day-planner covers and plainer versions of all these items, machine-made but fine quality.

And if you're looking for something unique in clothing, Dark Star stocks jackets, skirts and pants, some machine washable.

Prices vary depending on the item, whether it is hand- or machine-made, and the intricacy of the design.