MORGANTOWN -- On Morgantown's main drag, you can find men's clothing stores, fine jewelry shops and elegant dress boutiques. But, one of the few stores on High Street that makes its own products is Tanner's Alley Leather Design Studio.

What sets this shop apart from other boutiques?

"I think that a lot of our bags are unique and creative," explains Owner Charles McEwuen. "We try to make things that you don't see out there. Whether it's the shape or construction technique or even just leather can take a design that might be fairly mundane and turn it into something completely wild and crazy because of the type of leather we use."

McEwuen claims he stumbled upon his trade during his time in the army.

"I wanted to make something for myself and they had a craft shop on post and I decided to go down there and get some leather and make it myself," he recounts. "Pretty soon I was making things for everybody in my unit."

And the rest, he says, is history. But all these colors and patterns haven't always been the norm for Tanner's Alley.

"For most of my career, I have been fairly conservative, and whenever these young women came into my life with these creative, interesting designs for me, it was like starting over again," he admits.

According to McEwuen, there are a few different ways to tan leather. The old style, which is vegetable tanning, leaves the leather firm and suitable for suitcases and briefcases. A newer type of tanning, known as chrome tanning, leaves the leather suppler for design and fashion.

To make his best seller "Ruffles and Braids," he chooses colors, then a stencil.

"We'll just trace the design out on the leather," he explains as he cut out the main section of leather.

Next he chooses a supple maroon leather. "This is lambskin - it's really soft and it's going to work well to make a ruffle."

He glues the margin of the ruffle. "I fold over the edge to give us a nice, clean edge."

He sews the edges, then folds it and sews a loose stitch down the middle.

"As you can see, when we open it up, we get a ruffle."

The bag's handle is also made by hand.

He wraps eight leather strips around a soft core.

"We're going to braid it into an eight strand herringbone braid. And we've picked out a nice striped lining here," he points out, showing where the 'Haute Metal" label is stitched into the pocket.

"Okay, we're going to punch our grommet," he warns, before he bangs the holes out and then hammers grommets in.

When all the sewing and hardware is complete, attaching the handle is simple.

Tanner's Alley can also create a bag according to your specifications. McEwuen says he makes a lot of bags to match reenactment costumes, from 12th century to World War II - but he's getting a lot of requests for custom designed handbags.

"We have a steady stream," he explained. "So much so that my backlog for custom work is many months long!"

Tanner's Alley has been drawing national attention recently. It's featured in the March 2009 issue of Southern Living as a hot spot to shop.

Remember the television show Fresh Prince? Actress and singer Tatyana Ali sports a bag from the Haute Metal line in an upcoming series.

"We have the governor and his wife both carrying our bags and who knows who else out there," he reported.

McEwuen says that with the recent attention, the sky is the limit for Tanner's Alley.

"I'm excited!" he exclaimed. "It's like every design is something new. We hope to make our bags a household name in all the United States."