When I started thinking about a Fall edition of the Icona, I knew I didn’t want to just change the leather color and call it the fall edition.
I wanted the bag to actually feel like fall.
That’s when I started thinking about using real leaves.
Not printed leaves. Not stamped leaves. Actual leaves from East Texas pressed into the leather to create the design. The best part is that the leave I went out and picked came from a big beautiful tree at the church.
The idea sounded simple enough.
It was not.
I spent time testing different leaves, different placements, different amounts of moisture, and different ways of pressing them into the leather. Some leaves gave beautiful impressions. Some barely showed up at all. Some looked good at first and then lost detail as the leather dried.
There was a lot of trial and error before I got the result I wanted.
Eventually, I found a combination that worked.
The leather was dampened, the leaves were arranged by hand, and the flap was pressed so the natural shape and veins of the leaves could transfer into the surface.
Because I’m using actual leaves, no two impressions can ever be exactly the same.
That became one of my favorite things about this edition.
Even though the bags share the same design, each flap has its own pattern, depth, and little imperfections from the leaves that created it.
That means each Fall Icona is truly one of a kind.
The goal was still the same as every CassJean piece: make something that feels special, but also something you’ll actually want to use.
Only two Fall Iconas were made for the 2026 edition.
Partly because the process is slow.
Mostly because I like the idea that limited editions stay limited.
For me, designing bags is the most fun when I can experiment, test something new, and let the materials influence where the final design ends up.
The Fall Icona was exactly that.
It started with a random idea involving leaves and leather and ended with two bags that could never be recreated exactly the same way again.
And that’s kind of the whole point.
