Fresh from celebrating their 10-year anniversary in business, the BillyKirk boys (Chris and Kirk Bray) are riding a great wave of success with collabs and special orders abounding. The company is well-known to menswear insiders for their hand crafted leather accessories including bags, belts and wallets, most of it crafted by a group of Amish leather workers in Pennsylvania. So how do they do it you may ask? We ask them to keep a log of a day in the life of the brothers Bray. Here’s what we got. Enjoy!

CHRIS

7:05 am – Got cleaned up and my daughter, Matilda, and I had oatmeal, juice and some melon.

8:35 am – Off to work on my bike. Wear a helmet kids!

8:45 am – Kirk is at his design table sifting through stuff and shaking the cobwebs off from the weekend.

9:00 am – I sit down and look over my notes for the week: late fall orders, website improvements, countless e-mails to address, interviewing a few new manufacturers for some of our product, upcoming Vegas (capsule) tradeshow samples, PR things to get sorted, bills…

10:30 am – I answer a boat load of emails from the weekend. A German man is wondering if his passport will fit in our No. 153 passport holder. Sadly, theirs are just a bit too big.

11:45 am – I am busy embossing 12 hand-stitched card cases for groomsman gifts. Alex Williams, a writer for the New York Times Style section, commissioned the goods — sure beats the typical engraved pocket knife or cheap flask.

2:00 pm – Just sent more images of the Billykirk/Opening Ceremony collaboration to Opening Ceremony.

4:00 pm – DHL arrives for some Japan shipments.

6:00 pm – Winding down the day. Boxes ready for UPS and desk fairly organized. Got to get home and take Matilda off Tracy’s hands!

KIRK

7:45 am – Alarm – Wake up with sore back (note to self – learn how to sleep properly). Another Monday. Radio goes on to NPR.

8:00 am – Breakfast consists of two scrambled eggs with tomatoes, black beans, and half an avocado.

815 am – Check CNN, emails, Facebook, Fixed Gear Gallery, Ebay, Selectism, A Continuous Lean, and my painting website to see if anyone bothered to take a peak. Four people did yesterday!

8:43 am – Commute all the way to my work table located near the windows in my live/work loft. Believe me, there are other trade-offs besides no commute.

8:45 am – Chris arrives, work begins and the music comes on. This morning we ease into the day with a classic: Neil Young – Harvest.

9:00 am – After checking my list of to-do’s for the day I call our Amish manufacturer. He checks his messages at the local call box twice a day around noon and 4pm. He is very good about doing this, thankfully. I handle most of the production around here, with help from trusty apprentices, Maddy and Michael, and I call Sam, the Amish man, daily for updates on production or to add items to current purchase orders.

9:30 am – Turn on the tumblers. This is another daily ritual. We tumble all of our hardware with industrial tumbling machines to take away the shine. It’s a grimy, time consuming process.

9:45 am – Next I put together some shoulder straps for some carryall bags that need to go out today.

10:00 am – Maddy shows up at 10ish and promptly begins the process of taping, tagging, wiping, strapping and bagging the carryalls. These particular bags are an exclusive collection and are on their way to Opening Ceremony, NY, L.A. and their new store in Tokyo. They look really good.

11:00 am – Box up the shoe samples, a collaboration we did with Sebago, to go to our PR guys. Pull some belts for an accessory story for the New York Times. Done and done.

12:00 pm – Trying to get an early jump on Fall 2010 I start brainstorming some ideas.

1:00 pm – Lunch time. At lunch we often look something up on the internet that has come up in conversation earlier in the day. Today we look at how to get gum out of clothing because I left a piece in a shirt pocket. Turns out warm vinegar does the trick.

2:00 pm – Next I call one of our leather suppliers to place an order for six sides of brown Latigo to be used on some upcoming bank bags for Freemans Sporting Club.

2:30 pm – More music is needed. Maddy plays DJ and chooses Chief. Good selection.

3:00 pm – Sourcing a French snap for a collaboration with Freeman Transport for the upcoming NYC Fall Tweed Bike event. We are making a musette bag in canvas.

6:30 pm – Okay I have my home back for the night. I haven’t been outside all day; that’s not good. I motivate myself and grab my bike for a quick evening ride to the park. Not a bad way to finish off the work day.