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“[Warner] got on the phone and said: ‘Son, I’m 82 years old. I want that leather,’ ” the 55-year-old Carlin said. “His voice was booming over the phone and he sounded exactly like he does on TV.”

The catch: J.W. Hulme does not sell a Russet leather bag. But Carlin got the deal done.

“He sent me a Valentine’s Day card the subsequent year,” Carlin said.

A phone conversation with John Warner might have been a brush with fame, but Carlin rubs elbows with the wealthy practically every day. The J.W. Hulme Quality Bags and Accessories target market is the wealthy world traveler, according to co-owner Jennifer Guarino.

But J.W. Hulme does not want to rely solely on the outfitting of safari and hunt clubs. With a generation of designer bag buyers growing older and more sophisticated, Guarino wants to help reverse the trend of commodity over craftsmanship in purse design.

Guarino took the initiative on new product development when she helped buy the company five years ago. She went in on a hunch and found that there was money to be made in briefcases and purses.

She introduced leather bags to the J.W. Hulme line, helping the St. Paul company explode into a completely new market. Its 100-year-old product line used to specialize in canvas bags and hunting gear. Now it is inching into the world of high fashion, but without the cheap manufacturing practices of mega-companies like Louis Vuitton and Coach.

J.W. Hulme’s top-selling bag is the “Heritage,” which runs about $750. The dapper maroon leather bag shines in the showroom, and it is pieced together by local hands on the adjacent factory floor.

While Louis Vuitton turned a net income of more than $2 billion in 2006, Guarino is content to keep her profits in the hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions in future years. Her goal is not to be retailing out of Bebe stores anytime soon, but to stay smart, sophisticated and practical.

“We’re ‘boutique luxury,’ ” Guarino said. “We found a niche market that will pay top-notch prices. We are at the size where we can make money. It’s a formula you have to work hard at to make work.”

There is no ceiling in sight because the clientele that J.W. Hulme attracts is above an economic recession, Guarino said.

“Our higher end bags are selling more,” she said. “You can’t be McDonald’s and a sit-down restaurant at the same time. It’s retailers who are afraid to stock inventory but we haven’t felt it.”

According to Carlin, J.W. Hulme does 60 percent of its sales over the phone with the remainder in wholesale and in-store sales. A huge part of Guarino’s marketing strategy is the free J.W. Hulme catalog. The company ships about 500,000 a year at a $1.50 each.

Safari-goers and jet setters place orders from all over the world with J.W. Hulme, making this tiny St. Paul manufacturing plant better known internationally than locally, Guarino said.

But not all of J.W. Hulme’s customers are exotic travelers. Some are middle-age professionals who simply want a quality briefcase or purse that will last them a lifetime.

“Husbands will buy their wives new purses and wives will buy their husbands new briefcases,” Carlin said.

Florida resident and cardiac surgeon George Tyson bought a luggage set and multiple gun cases from J.W. Hulme. Tyson went to school in Durham, N.C., where he recalls an antique furniture store that was dedicated to its craft. He equated the furniture store to J.W. Hulme and the quality of its products.

“They had a combination of [older people] and kids doing the work,” Tyson said. “These are just people who appreciate this quality when you could buy less expensive things.”

J.W. Hulme’s commitment to quality starts at the top with Guarino. When she bought the company five years ago, she made two big decisions. One was never to produce anything overseas, and the other was not to produce anything without the J.W. Hulme brand name.

It might be taking a page from the behemoth designers, but getting the brand name out is paramount to Guarino. Unlike brands like Coach, J.W. Hulme allows customers to personalize their orders with initials. J.W. Hulme bags and accessories may not come in hot colors or radical prints, but they exude a quiet confidence.

“It’s becoming a trend to buy quality over trendy,” Guarino said. “Coach customers don’t like the pink bags. Our bags will feel and look homemade.”

The leather bags that J.W. Hulme produces have all imperfections cut out of them while Louis Vuitton and Coach “emboss a fake cover that hides imperfections,” Guarino said. J.W. Hulme has to discard about two percent of its leather hides due to imperfections, manufacturing team-leader Beverly Lutgen said.

The J.W. Hulme manufacturing floor has rows of “old-school” sewing machines that are used for specific purposes. Workers use old and new machines alike to produce pieces. One machine is over 100 years old but is still integral to creating a certain J.W. Hulme product, Guarino said.

Guarino expects continued growth, with sales projected to rise 50 percent in 2008. She also plans on designing even more expensive and higher quality pieces.

“We have become a part of a market that will never leave,” Guarino said. “It’s an expensive way to do business but our customers know the importance of a bag backed for life.”