A painter’s eye.A piece of your own.

Leather bags by artist Annem Zaidi. Six silhouettes, designed in Bethesda.Choose a bag to carry as it is, or explore hand-painted initials and artwork.

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The Cove in espresso grainy leather, unpainted and complete.The Cove in espresso leather with a hand-painted pink blossom commission across the front.
As CommissionedHand-painted with blossom work
As CraftedThe Cove in Espresso, untouched

A painter’s collection

The bag you choose.
The mark you add.

Leather silhouettes that serve as a canvas for fine art.

Your initials or an idea of your own, painted by Annem on your chosen bag.

Move the frame to see the bag with and without painted artwork.

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A new silhouette, made around your brief. One bag or a collection for a special event.

Explore Bespoke Bags ↗

The collection · Six silhouettes

The six pieces.

Six shapes, six ways to carry the day.

Open the collection

  • Leather

    Made in small batches.

  • Shipping

    Free across the U.S.

  • Returns

    30 days on plain pieces.

  • Paint

    Initials or artwork, painted by Annem.

The Material

Leather, before any mark.

Look at the bag up close. The texture under your fingers, the line of the handle, the space inside. Begin with the details you will live with.

A full hide laid flat on the workbench, a hand pressed across the grain to read its texture and topography.The Cove in onyx leather, side profile — the silhouette resolved before any painted mark.Interior of The Vessel in umber leather — leather-lined pockets, hardware, and stitching.

Specimen · I

Annem Zaidi painting at her easel — Bethesda atelier interior
Bethesda, MD · Atelier

Meet the Artist

The figures in her paintings.
The people who carry her work.

For over a decade, Annem has painted women through the fall of cloth and the way they stand, their faces left unseen. At WAIR, her attention to shape and colour finds another form: a bag you can carry.

A pair of initials can be enough. Annem paints them by hand, with no stencils or printed transfers. You choose the letters; her brush gives them their character.

Annem’s fine-art archive

From the Journal

Read all entries
The Cove drawstring bucket bag in Onyx, shown in plain leather

Commissions

September 21, 2026

Choosing a leather bag for a third anniversary

A practical guide to a third-anniversary leather bag: choose the shape, consider hand-painted initials, and leave time for painting and shipping.

Read the piece

From the Atelier

A quiet note when the next drop lands.

News of new pieces, restocks, and painted work from Annem’s studio.

Private. Low volume. Unsubscribe anytime.

Bethesda Atelier · MMXXVI

Gifting

For someone
you know by heart.

Choose the shape and colour that remind you of them. Add a handwritten message if you wish, or speak with Annem about initials or artwork for the occasion.

A WAIR gift box on a walnut table — open lid, hand-written note, black ribbon

From the Bethesda Studio

@wairstudio
Editorial street portrait — a woman in a long cream wool coat carries a dark leather shoulder bag past stone columns in raking light.Cream coat. Stone. Carried.Pencil sketch of a coiled serpent emblem on cream paper, the pencil resting beside the drawing on the WAIR Studio workbench.Before the brass.A dark brown pebbled leather top-handle bag with a polished brass serpent emblem applied to the front panel, photographed against a warm-toned wall.And then in brass.Close-up of two leather handles on a dark bag with the WAIR wordmark in a serif typeface on a cream wall below.Two handles. One mark.A woman in a gray wool sweater and dark trousers, seen from behind, carries a black drawstring bucket bag on her shoulder against a pale stone wall.Drawstring up. On the shoulder.A dark brown pebbled leather top-handle bag photographed as a studio still life on a warm cream backdrop, the WAIR Studio wordmark below.Plain leather first.