Giulio Soglia
Cutting bench · 17 years
Marks and cuts every hide, which means he decides where the scars end up. Stamps G.S. inside the back panel. Takes Mondays off and spends them arguing with the tannery.
Via del Granaio 7 · Peccioli, Pisa
Four benches above a granary
Three people, one kiln-dried oak cutting table, and about forty hides a year. Everything on this site is made in this room, and you can stand in it on a Thursday.
Come and watch a seam
2009 — now
We started with a borrowed bench and one bad bag
Giulio Soglia trained as a saddler's apprentice on the Volterra road and left with a cutting bench he had not finished paying for. The first bag he sold went back inside a month because the strap anchor tore out of a panel he had skived too thin. He re-cut it, doubled the anchor, and has used the same reinforced pattern ever since.
That is roughly how everything here has changed: something failed, somebody brought it back, and the pattern moved. The repair book on the shelf by the window goes back to 2011 and is the only product development process we have.
Hides come from a tannery forty minutes north, pit-tanned in the slow way with chestnut and mimosa. We buy whole shoulders, not pre-cut panels, which is why the wallets exist at all — they are what the bags leave behind.
A bag is a promise about a Tuesday morning. Either your things go in it or they do not, and no photograph of a sunset will change that.
Giulio SogliaCutter, and the one who started it
Who cuts what
Three people, and the initials stamped inside every piece tell you which one made it.
Nadia Ferrucci
Stitching and edges · 9 years
Every saddle stitch in the shop and all four burnishing passes. Stamps N.F. under the strap anchor. Will re-stitch anything brought back to the bench, whoever made it.
Teo Vannucci
Straps, repairs, the post · 4 years
Cuts and finishes every strap, runs the repair bench on Fridays, and packs what goes out on Tuesday. Stamps T.V. on the strap tongue. Keeps the repair book up to date.
Peccioli, forty minutes from Pisa
The granary is the tall building with the double doors, halfway up Via del Granaio. There is no sign; the bell on the left is ours.
Open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday
Ten until six, no appointment needed. Bring a bag to be repaired, or just the things you carry and we will find out together which piece takes them.