What Mulberry is known for

Mulberry was founded in 1971 in Somerset by Roger Saul, who began at his kitchen table with 500 pounds from his mother. His sister drew the tree logo, and the first designs were buckled leather belts, followed by bags and womenswear. The house style, dubbed Le Style Anglais, joins English rural pursuits with London energy. It remains a British leather goods brand with a global reach.

Roger Saul founded Mulberry in 1971 with £500 of his twenty-first-birthday money, a kitchen table in Somerset, and his mother Joan sewing alongside — and built from it the definitive English leather-goods house. The tree logo and the county stayed: The Rookery in Chilcompton and a second Somerset factory still make the classic bags, the largest luxury leather manufacturing in Britain, complete with apprenticeship schools.

The Bayswater, launched 2003, is the house in one object — postman's-lock practicality, heritage leather, the English It-bag that outlived the It-bag era — flanked by the Alexa (named for Alexa Chung, satchel of an entire decade) and the Lily's chain-strap charm. Country codes — saddlery stitching, waxed leathers — anchor even the trend pieces.

Ownership sits with Singapore's Challice, and recent years brought restructuring and a "Back to the Mulberry Spirit" refocus on Britishness, craft and repair — the Lifetime Service Centre restores decades-old bags. Somerset leather, London polish: England's everyday luxury, still made where it started.