Howl & Hide fills special order for U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team

Leather goods manufacturer Howl & Hide Supply Co. made 32 personalized passport wallets for players and staff of the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team. (Photo provided by Howl & Hide Supply Co.)

Indiana handiwork accompanied members of the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team when they traveled to Paris.

Indianapolis-based leather goods manufacturer Howl & Hide Supply Co. made personalized passport wallets for the team’s players and staff, bolstering the company’s ties to professional basketball and extending the company’s Olympic traditions.

For the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021, Howl & Hide was commissioned by Wilson Sporting Goods Co. to make bags for softball players.

Howl & Hide, which operates a retail store in Fountain Square and a production facility near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Rural Street, collected its first pro basketball client when the Detroit Pistons ordered leather duffel bags for the team’s players.

Christian Resiak, who founded Howl & Hide in 2014, said hoops business boomed when the NBA All-Star Game came to Indianapolis this year and Phoenix hosted the WNBA All-Star Game earlier this month.

Howl & Hide made more than 500 duffel bags for NBA VIPs and thousands of promotional wallets for the NBA All-Star Game.

“I designed a bag with Tyrese Haliburton directly, and he gave those bags as gifts to all the players on the All-Star team,” Resiak said.

Before the WNBA showcase, Howl & Hide crafted customized bags for the Indiana Fever’s trio of All-Stars: Caitlin Clark, Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell.

“The WNBA All-Star Game wanted to give a gift to all the Olympic players,” Resiak said. “After suggesting that, we put them on to the idea of passport wallets since they’re traveling to Paris. They were really hyped about it.”

The 32 wallets feature the All-Star Game’s logo on the front and the name of each player or staff member on the inside. In a video posted to social media, Resiak provided a peek of how Howl & Hide used a 1960s bookbinding heat press and gold foil to place the names of Brittney Griner, A’Ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart in the wallets.

The Olympics opening ceremony is scheduled Friday, and the women’s basketball team plays its first game Monday against Japan.

Resiak, who grew up in Noblesville, said corporate and private-label clients are a large—if mostly unseen—part of Howl & Hide’s business model. He credits the company’s brand director, Mike Preuschl, for building those relationships.

“Within the promotional product and corporate gifting world, it’s an industry you don’t see too much of a slump,” Resiak said. “People always want their name on things, regardless of where the economy is. We’ve latched onto that and we want to elevate those products.”

Resiak said he sees the growth of Howl & Hide’s private-label work as a win for local manufacturing.

“Howl & Hide has always been known for providing and manufacturing bags straight to the consumer,” he said. “But how we want to scale, essentially, is through our private-label world. We want to not only bring jobs to Indianapolis, but bring manufacturing jobs and jobs that we can teach others as a skilled trade.”