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Achieving Our Dreams
Since starting this company, we’ve had two main goals: 1) to help the leather artisans that we work with to make a decent living off of their trade, and 2) to get these beautiful hand-made leather bags out into the world. Right now, we’re not doing much of either.
As of today, we are dropping the prices on all of our men’s and women’s bags.
We are dropping the prices, but we’re maintaining the same level of quality and worksmanship that you expect from Restrepo Leather. And our products will always remain strictly hand-made.
An Ode to My Tote
The first bag that Jerry made for me was the Bogota Tote. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it – I’m little, and I don’t typically carry large handbags, so I thought it might be too much. But I fucking love it and use it all. the. time.
First of all, I love the handles. They’re made with natural leather, which means that no color is added to the leather in the tanning process. Though natural leather looks a little weird at first (kind of fleshy, reminding you that it came from an actual animal), over time and with some sun and sweat, it develops a gorgeous patina. I love that the handles change, and I love their contrast with the darker chestnut leather of the bag.
Second of all, I love that I can take this bag absolutely anywhere. I use it to carry a bottle of wine over to a friend’s place for dinner. I use it when traveling to stash a book, my passport, and a bottle of water. But it’s not pretentious either – I use it all the time when I go to the corner store to pick up some groceries. No canvas grocery bags for me.
Third of all, I love that Jerry made it. It was one of the first bags he made, before he really knew what he was doing. He didn’t use great leather or high-quality thread, because he didn’t know then how to pick them out. The stitching isn’t perfect. But he put in hours of love and sweat into it. I love when people ask where I got my bag and can say that Jerry made it for me.
Last of all, I love that Jerry didn’t intentionally make the bag for me. He thought that the tote could serve as a men’s bag and made it for himself, though I quickly convinced him otherwise.
Our Team: Juancho
You know that kid from high school who always went by Jimmy but keeps trying to get people to call him James? That’s Juancho. He always introduces himself as Juan, but always ends up being called Juancho.
“I want people to know that our work is 100% handmade, I want people to value the work. All of the work that goes into that bag. I want people to wonder – was the person who made this bag happy that day? Was he sad? Was the sun shining? Was he hanging out with his girlfriend? I’m not talking about value in terms of price, I’m talking about what’s behind each piece of work.”
Juan Carlos Hernandez has been a leatherworker for 13 years. He enrolled at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios Santo Domingo, a technical school for artisans in Bogota, and stumbled into leatherworking. “They had classes for woodworking, silversmithing, and leatherworking,” Juancho explains. “The other two courses were full. But I enjoyed leatherworking from day one.” One of his professors invited him to the workshop. That professor was Cesar, and they have been working together ever since.
His favorite part of the leatherworking process is punching the holes to prepare the pieces to be sewn together. But Juancho also designs his own bags, specializing in braids. “I took a class at school on leather braiding, but I mostly learned by reading a book and practicing on my own. I like that a braid is complicated. It makes my pieces stand out, it makes them unique.”
Juancho dreams of being able to travel around the world and run his own leather workshop. Aside from leatherworking, Juan loves riding his bike, watching new movies, and listening to music. He says that bike riding is cool, in this order:
3. Riding a bike.
2. Riding a bike while listening to music.
1. Riding a bike while listening to music and while with a girl you like.
Juancho’s favorite bags are the Cordoba Weekender (in chestnut brown with blue suede) and the Bogota Tote (in dark brown).
“I like leatherworking because it’s relaxing, it makes me happy. It’s interesting work… you could say it’s exclusive. There aren’t many people doing this. I mean, there are a lot of bags out there – but work like what we do, it’s hard to find.”
Our Team: Luis
A soft-spoken man, Luis smiles his shy grin and sits on the stool to chat. I always love talking with him – he is visibly passionate about what he does, always testing out new techniques and trying to improve the quality of his work.
“People see the difference between something made by hand and something made by machine,” Luis says. “That’s the most gratifying part, both for me and the client. When the customer receives their product and they say, ‘I love this, it turned out really well,’ I love hearing that. It’s incentive to work every day to be better.”
Luis showing off his wallet that he made 20 years ago and has been using ever since.
Luis Eduardo Castellanos has lived in Bogota his whole life. He has been doing leatherworking for 45 years – the longest of anyone at the workshop, including Cesar. As a kid, Luis started an apprenticeship to learn saddlery, the art of leatherworking for horses, including saddles and reins. From there, he moved on to making bags and braided leather belts, everything always made by hand. He worked in the military for a bit, making everything from gun holsters to tents. Luis tells his story [translated from Spanish]:
I opened up my own workshop at home for a few years and would sell my saddlework to shops in Bogota. After people stopped buying hand-made, I left leatherworking for a while. I worked a variety of jobs – as a driver for the city, as an administrator for a produce market. But I always kept up with leatherworking at home as a hobby. After my other jobs, I tried to sell my leather pieces again, but by that time, things had changed. Leather isn’t used as much anymore in saddlery, now people use nylon. Nothing is hand-made anymore, everything is machine-stitched and with rivets. It’s no longer artisanal. People no longer valued my work.
I was working as a city driver when I stumbled across this leather workshop. I was driving by and stopped at the stoplight in front. The pieces in the window caught my attention. I came back another day and stopped in to say hi… Cesar was working with some students, and I saw that they were stitching by hand. I was surprised, because you don’t see people doing that much these days. I told Cesar that I’d been doing leatherworking for years and asked if I could work for him. We chatted while I told him about all of my experience. He said he wasn’t looking for any help at the moment, but called me two weeks later. I’ve been working here ever since, for about a year and a half.
When I ask what his favorite leather is, he tells me the whiskey. “It’s so beautiful and fun to work with.” His favorite bags are the Restrepo Briefcase and Magdalena Handbag – both in whiskey leather with orange suede. He says, “I’ve worked with machine-stitching too, it’s a lot faster than working by hand. For example, with the Restrepo Briefcase – that’s something that, if I were making several at a time, would take me about 3 hours to do each one. By hand it takes 35 hours.”
Luis continues about how he loves the work here. He especially loves the clean look of the double-needle stitching on our men’s bags. “I love working with my hands, it’s relaxing,” he says. “I enjoy learning new things.”
Tribute to Poppa & My Fashion Heritage
I can’t explain why, when my grandfather died, the one thing I took of his was an old shirt – but it’s now my go-to shirt for lounging around the house and also looking super hipster by throwing it over a pair of leggings. Van Eaton Hart (fondly referred to as Poppa by us grandkids), was a Southern Jewish badass. He died on March 17, so St. Patrick’s Day is always a time to wear green and drink some Virginia Gentleman in his honor.
Poppa was a creative man with big ideas and a love of life. He took over his father-in-law’s dry goods business, selling everything from thread to buttons to denim. Back in the day, jeans weren’t fashionable – they were a working man’s fabric, worn by cowboys and lumberjacks. Poppa was one of the first people to market jeans as something to be worn by everyone. He made my mom and aunt model his stylish overalls, Polly-Alls.
Though in the end another Jewish man by the name of Levi Strauss did a better job of branding denim to a wider audience, my aunt recently saw a photo of Andrew Young wearing Polly-Alls in a Civil Rights march. Now that’s some Southern heritage to be proud of.
I like to think that Poppa would love sitting in the leather workshop, chatting with Cesar about leather and learning all about the production process. And I wonder what pieces of history our leather will witness.
Combining two loves: Leather and Maps
Quick disclaimer: this next post is probably the dorkiest one we have written so far. It is not for the faint of heart.
Robin, in her Clark Kent day job, is a mapmaker. She uses advanced software programs to make detailed, beautiful, interesting maps, for all kinds of clients and with all kinds of applications. One of Robin’s biggest pet peeves, even more than people spelling Colombia with a “u,” is the overuse of the Mercator projection (you know, that awful map where Greenland looks as big as the United States). The inherent problem with any map projection is trying to transfer a three-dimensional object to two dimensions.
Working with leather is a lot like working with maps. Like a map, a leather hide is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object. Leather is a natural material. It’s the skin of a dead animal, complete with stretch marks, small nicks and cuts, and even the brand on the animal’s backside. Some parts of the hide are like Greenland on the Mercator map – stretchy and un-usable. Any good leatherworker has to learn how to work around these limitations and make efficient use of the hide. For example, making sure to cut strap pieces out of the cow’s back, often the straightest part of the hide. That problem-solving is one of my favorite things about leatherworking.
The International Leatherworking Community
For me, Restrepo Leather is not just a business, but also an outlet for my passion (read: obsession) for leatherworking. One reason why I love this craft is all of the different types of leatherworking that exist. As an ancient profession with roots all over the world, different cultures have independently developed unique styles and different solutions to problems that all leatherworkers face: how to cut leather? How to stitch? How to treat the edges?
Unfortunately, leatherworking appears to be one of the few things left in the world that has yet to be exhaustively explored and documented on the internet (the top 2 Google search results for leatherworking are World of Warcraft-related, and much of the rest is for LARPers). I’ve done my fair share of research, and there isn’t much out there on how to make high quality leather bags by hand.
I was overjoyed to find out that I’m not the only person who had this thought. Sean at Fine Leatherworking noticed the same thing and decided to create a space for an online fine leatherworking community, a place where high quality tools, materials, and knowledge can be found in one place.
Sean was interested to learn about my route to the craft and the broader state of leatherworking in Colombia, and posted the transcript of our conversation to his blog.
We are hopeful that some exciting new developments will come from this partnership. First up: experimenting with new thread.
Being an Entrepreneur – One Year In
One year ago, Jerry and I went to a small town called Choachí for the weekend. We stayed at a cute ecohotel and started working on a business plan for what was temporarily called Tolochko Leather (until we decided that no one would be able to spell or pronounce it).
It’s funny to think how many things have changed since we first started this process. We originally thought that we’d only sell men’s bags. We thought that we wouldn’t build a full online store, but rather would sell through Etsy. We had no clue what we were doing.
That weekend, we debated the principles to put in our mission statement. How much could we strip down until we were left with just the essentials?
- Supporting a strictly hand-made method of leather bag production.
- Creating beautiful, long-lasting leather goods.
- Abiding by ethical production standards and treating all team members like human beings.
- Providing individual care and attention to every customer.
Looking back, we pretty accurately laid out the fundamental aspects of the company. In giving (unsolicited) advice, many people have questioned these principles. “Why don’t you use sewing machines?” they ask. “Why don’t you work with different people so that you can pay them less?” We didn’t start Restrepo Leather to squeeze profits out of local manufacturers. We entered into this because we believed in the quality of strictly hand-made and the people we were working with. And that still holds true, one year later.
Wanted: Photographer in Bogota
As you may know, our beloved photographer left Colombia several months ago. We’ve been trying to get by with our own amateur photography skills, but the time has come. We’re looking for a photographer in Bogota to help us out with a few projects.
At the moment, we’re looking for someone who can take excellent portraits and product photos (wallets!). If you’re the person for the job or if you know someone who is, let us know.
Dressing Up: Hats
I’ve been balding since my junior year of high school. My mom was the first to notice and immediately bought me Rogaine. After a year or two of squirting the junk onto my still-thinning hair, I realized that I was fighting a losing battle. It was time to embrace going bald, which meant: 1) getting married young to have hair in the wedding photos; and 2) buying hats.
For those of us who have hair that looks like a forest stricken by disease, hats aren’t just an aesthetic choice – they also keep one’s scalp from burning and peeling. That said, it isn’t easy. Having never been a “hat person” before, where do you begin? How do you avoid looking like that creepy guy in a fedora? Where’s the middle ground between a top hat and a trucker hat?
The first hat I ever owned was a faluche, a velour beret covered in pins and ribbons, worn by some French students, which I received when I studied abroad in Lyon. However, the faluche, despite its obvious charm, isn’t the most versatile hat.
Next came the “Che hat.” Really just a military-inspired cap, this hat is a workhorse, an excellent companion for months-long backpacking trips.
Once in Colombia, though, I had to go local. In the old part of town, La Candelaria, there’s a small side street filled with nothing but hat shops. It was time to buy a Panama hat, made in Colombia.
Next, I plan on visiting a 65-year-old hat company in Bogotá called Barbisio and see what else Colombia has to offer.
This will be something of a recurring series under the heading “Dressing Up,” where I expand upon a particular point or nuance in “my sartorial evolution.”
Looking Ahead to 2013
Bogota essentially shuts down the last week of December through the first couple of weeks of January, so we took advantage and traveled to Bolivia. The landscapes are unreal.
Travel is always a time for us to reflect on whether we are living the lives we want to lead and pursuing our goals. This year, in addition to setting personal goals for 2013, Jerry and I talked about what’s in store for Restrepo Leather, and I think these photos pretty much sum up how we feel about it:
{ really effing excited! }
{ conquering a mountain }
There is a lot in the pipeline for this year, and the first thing I’m excited to announce is that we will be releasing a line of women’s and men’s wallets. Strictly hand-made leather wallets. We’re still tweaking the designs, so we don’t have any pretty pictures and nothing is going on sale yet, but GET EXCITED. People have been asking us for wallets ever since we started.
And on that note, I leave you with llamas, because llamas are the most majestic creatures on earth. I wonder if there is such a thing as llama leather?
CSA in Bogota
Even though we have an amazing food market near our apartment in Bogota, I recently decided to start buying produce through La Canasta, a local CSA (community-supported agriculture). Every Wednesday morning, a box is delivered to us with fresh organic fruit, vegetables, and eggs. You receive whatever produce is in season and ready to be harvested, without having the option of choosing what you want to eat that week. What I most dislike about cooking is thinking about shopping lists, so I figured that we would simply need to find recipes for whatever random goodness was delivered to us that week.
The first week that we signed up, the CSA organizers were planning a trip to Subachoque to visit some of the farms where the food comes from. The idea was for the consumers in Bogota and the farmers who produce our food to get to know each other and strengthen this food network and community. I have never lived or worked on a farm, so it was quite the eye-opening experience.
Honorio and Luz Stella opened their home and their farm to us. The farm is small, but they cultivate a wide variety of crops. They explained how long the process of creating food takes - preparing the land, planting the seeds, tending the plants, harvesting the crops, and creating the compost pile to then start all over again. Day in and day out.
It was then that I realized that, like most wonderful things in life, farming is part science and part art. Farmers are artisans in their own way, and their work should be valued as such. Ever since taking up leather-working, I have a greater appreciation for people who put extra effort into whatever they do and do it well. Honorio and the other CSA farmers spend time caring for their land, which results in a healthier planet and a healthier me.
Though we don’t get as much food through the CSA as we would at our local market for the same amount of money, Jerry and I have decided that it is worth it to pay extra to support these artisans. In the same vein, the people who buy from us are willing to pay more, knowing that they support a dying production method and that they are directly supporting artisans in Colombia.
Restrepo Leather will be out for a couple of weeks – we’re heading on vacation to Bolivia!
Dressing up: The T-shirt
In high school, we had a pretty simple, typical dress code: tuck your shirt in, and it should probably have a collar. College, though… there you can wear anything at all. T-shirt, gym shorts, and flip flops to class? Absolutely! It was time to throw out all the over-sized polo shirts from my high school days and figure out a new approach.
That’s when I discovered Threadless. Though they didn’t invent the graphic t-shirt, the folks at Threadless made it much, much better. I own at least a dozen of their user-submitted-designs-turned-t-shirts, many of which I brought down with me to Colombia.
T-shirts, while decidedly casual and informal, are a vital wardrobe staple, invaluable any time of the year. I’ve worn my Threadless shirts to work, to the gym, and to the beach. Since my college days though, I find myself rocking a t-shirt by itself less and less. These days, they go under sweaters or blazers. Most of all, I now get them covered in paint stains while I work on leather bags.
2 Threadless shirts!
Starting a Business With Your Spouse
I’m honored to be featured today on A Practical Wedding, a blog that is “working to build a cultural conversation about what it means to be young(ish) and married right now.” A little over a year ago, Jerry and I were kicking around the idea of starting a company together.
Common wisdom these days says that you shouldn’t get into business with family, perhaps even more so with a spouse. What if problems in business translate to problems in your relationship? Or vice versa? Jerry and I thought for a while about whether starting a business together was the right idea for us, and ultimately made the decision the same way we usually make decisions together: one part careful thought, one part gut feeling, and ten parts trusting each other.
There’s no doubt that we made the right decision. Starting up Restrepo Leather together has been one of the most rewarding things we’ve done, and it’s only just begun.
Check out the full post on A Practical Wedding.
Don't worry, even with the company we still make time to travel (here in Santander, Colombia)
UGA Football in Bogota
Our alma mater, the University of Georgia, is the closest it’s been to a college football national championship since 1980. Aside from a free education and future wife, the greatest gift my university gave me was a lifelong love for the UGA football team. Despite a reputation as heart-breakers, our Bulldogs are one win away from playing for the national championship.
Except for Robin and me, no one in Colombia could care less. Thanks to the Internet, though, I never have to miss a football game. Almost every Saturday, I hurl insults and encouragement to my team through the computer screen. Our neighbors are always worried by my shouting, but they’ll need earplugs for this weekend’s SEC Championship game against Alabama.
In honor of our beloved Georgia Bulldogs, we’re offering a 10% discount on all bags that have either red or black leather or suede, and a 20% discount on bags with both red & black (like this Tolima Messenger with red embossed leather and charcoal suede). This offer is good through December 7th, and we’ll extend it to January 7th if we make it to the national championship game! Please contact us if you’re interested.
Behind the Camera
When Jerry and I decided to start up Restrepo Leather, we knew that we couldn’t do it alone. We knew that we had many of the tools to create a successful company, but we needed some help.
Enter Avery Leigh White.
I knew Avery from high school, but we were more Facebook friends than real-life friends (though I’d been secretly admiring her photography for a while). Then I got a message from her when we were looking to hire someone saying that she was thinking about moving to Colombia. After a two-hour Skype conversation, she was hired.
This girl is a genius behind a camera, and we’ve gotten endless compliments about the photos on our website. Avery is fearless. Her portraits make you feel like you know her subjects, like you want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with them. When she takes photos she comes alive.
Avery left Bogota today for her next life adventure. Her photos are such a part of Restrepo Leather that it will feel strange getting someone else to document our products and our people.
Avery – We couldn’t have done this without you. Know that you will always be a part of the Restrepo Leather family. We will truly miss you, but we can’t wait to see where you go next. And don’t forget to send pictures.
Avery Leigh White’s photos can be found on her Flickr photostream. All rights reserved.
A Beacon on a Hill
You can’t escape U.S. election coverage, even in Colombia. The election was all over local news networks for the past several months, and El Tiempo even had its own election map (y’all know I loved that).
Colombians knew far more about the U.S. presidential campaigns than most Americans know about any other country’s politics. With good reason: as the most powerful country in the world, American politics influences people far beyond our own borders. The opinions I’ve heard from people here range everywhere from being elated about Obama to disappointment that Romney didn’t win to insisting that the Colombian government will be a puppet of the U.S. government regardless of who’s president.
Living overseas, you realize that as an American voter, you actually have an impact on the lives of people all over the world. I’m grateful that we were able to send in our absentee ballots while living abroad – many Colombians I spoke with were amazed that we could participate in American elections while not physically going to a polling place. How long before we’re able to vote online?
What’s in a Name: Carlos Restrepo
With all this talk about the upcoming presidential election, I think we can all relate with this girl.
So let’s talk about a president from a different country and century. Enter Carlos Eugenio Restrepo Restrepo (yes, he had not one, but two Restrepo last names!), president of Colombia from 1910-1914.
Now this is a guy I’m proud to share a name with. Not only was he president, but he wrote poetry, founded the Red Cross in his hometown, and had a perfect mustache.
And if that doesn’t make him cool enough, during a time when the Conservatives and Liberals in Colombia were in constant disagreement, he was known for his promotion of peace, for governing the nation as a whole, and not playing politics. Now that’s a lesson that we can all learn from, wherever we are.
Our name comes with a great legacy. This is part of an on-going series at Restrepo Leather to highlight the other Restrepos of the world.
Research and photo from Wikipedia and Banco de la Republica.
Dressing Up: Coming of Age
I love reading stories about style bloggers and designers who were fashionable even as 3-year-olds because it is so different from my story. I am a very unlikely fashion entrepreneur.
For a long time in middle and high school, the only jacket that I owned was a green Mexican poncho that I had received as a birthday gift from a friend. Never thinking to Febreze the jacket, much less wash it, I wore it until it fell apart when I was sixteen.
In warmer months, I swapped my ratty jacket for a uniform of band t-shirt and khaki shorts.
Once the poncho was laid to rest, I raided my Dad’s closet and found his old leather trench coat. In my teachers’ eyes, I went from drug user to drug pusher. Neither description could have been further from the truth. In reality, I was just a dorky high schooler, more concerned about cost and practicality than style.
Everything changed when I studied abroad in France during junior year of college. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by men and women who dressed well.
That’s when I began a gradual stylistic evolution, purchasing a black button-down as my “going-out shirt.”
I swapped my baggy K-Mart t-shirts for Threadless t-shirts, and bought not one, but two! corduroy blazers.
More importantly, I stumbled across the world of men’s fashion blogs. I went from having never heard of Levi’s to knowing the difference between longwing and captoe dress shoes, and notch and peak lapels. My blog consumption quickly expanded and an eBay addiction was born.
I knew that I had come a long way when a NYC friend’s girlfriend complimented me on my boots and jeans. Robin received much of the credit for “teaching me how to dress,” but I am entirely self-taught.
Though I still have a long way to go, at least I know that my leather briefcase and duffel are better than everyone else’s.
This will be something of a recurring series under the heading “Dressing Up,” where I expand upon a particular point or nuance in my sartorial evolution.
Perfect Fall Accessories
Year after year, a classic leather bag reigns as the fall accessory. What we love about our whiskey leather is that it works in every season, every year.
May we suggest one of our men’s bags customized with whiskey leather?
Three Years – The Leather Anniversary
Three years ago, Jerry and I got married at a summer camp in the north Georgia mountains. We usually recognize birthdays and anniversaries with a nice dinner, a weekend trip, and/or a small present somewhere between a week and a few months late.
Quite serendipitously, it turns out the traditional wedding gift for the third anniversary is leather. Leather, a material that is strong yet flexible. It holds its shape over time, but also matures and molds depending on the person who uses it. Leather gets better with age.
This year, we already gave each other our presents. Rather than give each other a present made of leather, we’ve built a leather company together in this third year of marriage.
If you had told us three years ago that we would be where we are right now, we would have said you were crazy. But one reason that we were ready to get married was because we knew that being committed to each other would open more doors for us; we knew that we would push each other to pursue new opportunities. Though we couldn’t have anticipated then where we are now, we did know that we wanted to build our lives around each other.
Though much conventional wisdom advises against working with family, ultimately we made the decision to start Restrepo Leather the same way we usually make decisions together: one part careful thought, one part gut feeling, and ten parts trusting each other. The values that make our marriage strong also apply to running Restrepo Leather as a team – communication, trust, hard work, and having fun.
Who knows where we’ll be another three years from now, but I feel damn lucky to know that Jerry will be there. Happy leather anniversary, mi amor.
Wedding photo courtesy of Phil Skinner, all rights reserved.
How To: Make Chai Tea
We have this amazing home recipe for chai tea that we’ve been meaning to share with you. What does homemade chai tea have to do with leather bags, you ask? A lot, actually. It’s about our philosophy – an approach to life that our brand has been founded upon. We built our business around these leather bags because they are made by artisans who invest time and energy into their work all for the sake of quality. It’s easy to get swept up by the millions of distractions around us and lose sight of the things we value: creativity, quality, discipline, pleasure. Spending the time to make a batch of chai tea at the beginning of each week versus buying it from Starbucks (or Juan Valdez Cafe, as the case may be in Colombia) reminds us of these values – not to mention, it tastes a helluva lot better. Try it out, and be sure to let us know what you think.
Ingredients:
13 cloves
10 black peppercorns
1 thumb of ginger, grated or microplaned
2 teaspoons orange zest
2 teaspoons cardamom pods (not ground)
2-3 cinnamon sticks
7 C water
1/4 C loose leaf black tea (or 7 teabags of black tea)
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp honey
Milk or milk alternative
(optional) 5 allspice peppercorns
*Note: If you like things with a bit more umph, feel free to increase the quantity of spices!
Instructions:
1. Add the grated ginger, orange zest, spices, and water to the pot.
2. Heat the pot on the stove on high heat until it comes to a boil.
3. Add the tea and lower to a low boil (though make sure the water is still boiling).
4. Boil the pot with the tea leaves for 15 minutes. If you would like to make the tea stronger or weaker, add or reduce the amount of tea, don’t boil it for less or more time.
5. Strain the tea, and discard the tea and spices.
6. Stir in the vanilla and honey to the strained chai tea.
7. Add milk to taste.
Drink and enjoy!
Local Love: Interview with a Bookbinder
Behind an unassuming storefront in the center of Bogota sits a cozy bookbinding workshop with an impressive array of beautifully crafted books, Ricardo Corazon de Papel. Ricardo Aguirre’s shop is one of those hidden treasures that brings great delight to all of us “cool” seekers. After 10 years of operating, his shop has gained some serious street cred as the best of the best. We hung out with Ricardo one afternoon to chat about his craft. The following are some excerpts from our conversation (translated from Spanish and paraphrased).
How did you start bookbinding?
Years ago, in the 1980s, I was working as an assistant for the brilliant bookbinder, Miguel Fajardo. Watching Miguel work was an inspiration for me. I really fell in love with books during this time, especially old books. I started experimenting with bookbinding, but just little projects here and there. In 1996, I began working with book restoration as well. My dream became quite clear – I wanted to own my own bookbinding and restoration workshop. So I went back to work with Miguel. This time I was really focused. I learned as much as I could about the different binding techniques. In 2002, I opened up my own workshop and it’s done very well. I have the privilege to be able to continue to learn and experiment as a craftsman here in my own shop.
Tell us about your workshop.
We operate using 100% traditional methods of bookmaking. We work by hand for the majority of the process and we use all antique, hand-operated machines.
Tell us about your style.
When I make a book, I consider two things: what are the visual and physical experiences I want to cultivate with this particular book? The physical qualities of a book are essential to its personality. The thickness and texture of its pages. The width of it’s spine. Will it be a hard or soft cover? These physical attributes define the user’s experience in subtle ways. Think of the difference between a small journal with a sleek black leather cover and smooth, bright white pages versus a large journal with a cover made from brown leather with a deep patina and beige, textured pages. These two journals will stimulate different kinds of experiences. Visually speaking, I tend to lean towards a more classic aesthetic. As I mentioned earlier, old books are part of what drew me to this craft. I think there’s something really poetic about traditional-looking books, though I also love to experiment with unusual materials and styles. We have a lot of fun with design here. Nothing is impossible.
Afternoon with a Colombian Leather Tanner
One sunny Sunday afternoon, we took a field trip down to Bogota’s long-established tanning district, San Benito. In a corner cafe we struck up a conversation with Israel Cuesta, a veteran in the Bogota leather-tanning scene. After a few cups of coffee with Israel, we all set out for a tour du San Benito. We strolled around and chatted with leather workers, tanners, shop owners and passing pedestrians (Israel is a popular man). He also took us by his tannery to introduce his family and show us his craft.
Israel married the daughter of a prominent leather family in the small Colombian town, Villapinzon. He and his new bride moved to the big city to start their own leather and suede tannery 35 years ago. The tannery is full of family members doing their part to run daily operations. “I’ve recently started to teach my ten-year-old grandson about tanning. I know one day he’ll take over this business and make us all very proud,” Israel told us.
Here’s Israel with his son, examining hides:
Corrientazo: The Colombian Greasy Spoon
Corrientazo - a slang word that refers to a lunch catered to the needs of Colombia’s working class: it’s cheap, it’s quick, and it’s hearty.
The corrientazo is ubiquitous in Bogota, and there’s a strong sense of community in this mid-day ritual. In our neighborhood market, La Plaza de Mercado de La Perseverancia, people from all social strata sit together at communal tables to eat. The market is an incredible spot indeed. It’s a beautiful building where you can buy all your groceries, as well as flowers, fruit salads, and ice cream. In the middle of the market sits the food court, which fills up everyday with hungry Colombians (and a few gringos lucky enough to be in the know, like us).
Meet Doña Monica, the owner and head chef of our favorite food stand at the market. Doña Monica migrated to Bogota from Cartagena 15 years ago. Here, she serves up all the coastal favorites she learned how to cook from her grandmother, including fried plantain and coconut rice.
We had lunch at Doña Monica’s yesterday and we’ll most likely be there again tomorrow (same time, same place)!
My Tools
Cesar and his team espouse a very minimalist style of leatherworking (or marroquinería, as the Colombians call it). These tools, my first, are all the tools that my colleagues need to produce these beautiful works of art: knife, awl, straight edge, needle, tape measure. These tools allow us to turn a jumble of thread, leather, suede, and glue into Restrepo Leather bags.
As a student of the craft, I wanted to learn more. I wanted to experiment with different techniques. Next came these more specialized tools: punches, a compass, an edger, a scratch awl, and a hole-marker. These tools allow me to correct small imperfections in my bags.
Last, but most certainly not least, my head knife. This is a vintage Rose knife, with a blade that has stood the test of time. It took a while to get used to it, but now I don’t know what I would do without it.
Restrepo Leather. Strictly hand-made.
What’s in a Name: Laura Restrepo
Colombians are often confused by the name Restrepo Leather, since Restrepo is a somewhat common last name here, but it’s not ours. When people ask why we called our company Restrepo, we tell them that no one can pronounce or spell Tolochko. We tell them that we couldn’t very well call the company La Macarena, the neighborhood where we live, because that’s associated with the cheesy dance song from the 1990s. And, of course, we tell them about the leather district in Bogota that inspired the name.
So here we are, Restrepo Leather.
Our name comes with a great legacy. There are a lot of other Restrepos out there, and we want to honor them. This is the beginning of an on-going series at Restrepo Leather to highlight the other Restrepos of the world. We’ll start with Laura Restrepo.
Photo credit: Alfaguara
A renowned Colombian writer and journalist, Laura was raised in an eccentric household, where education wasn’t acquired in classrooms, but rather through constantly moving around the world with her family and her father’s piecemeal home schooling. Her novels blur the line between fiction and non-fiction, pulling on her experience as a journalist to create the characters. I’m drawn to the part of Laura’s story when she acted as a negotiator in the 1980s between the Colombian government and the M-19, a guerrilla group. Her vocal opposition to the actions of the Colombian government and subsequent death threats caused her to move out of her country for several years.
Though she worked for many years as a journalist, her real love is novels. Translated from this interview:
You know what I’d like? To be able to dedicate ten or twelve years to just one novel, investigate it ad nauseum, correct it until exhaustion, live with the characters through all that time to get to know them for real, become an expert in their motives and their reactions, learn their language inside and out, decipher until the last consequences the relationships between the different personalities. It won’t be possible because the art of writing is like everything else: you do it to get by. You’d have to have been born a noble, or a trust-fund baby, to dedicate twelve years of your life to just one novel.
Jerry found her book Delirio at the local flea market a few weeks ago. Perhaps it’s time for me to start reading books in Spanish.
Aero Leather Jackets – Restrepo Leather Approved
Everyone should own a good leather jacket. The kind of jacket that you wear for decades, that only gets better with age, that your grandkids end up fighting over.
Aero Leathers produces some of the best leather jackets in the world, but quality doesn’t come cheap. A few months ago I finally took the plunge and bought the Half Belt in black heavy front quarter horsehide.
Even after two months of wear, the jacket is still so stiff that it stands up all on its own. Weighing in at 7 lbs, my jacket is like a coat of armor, one that I will wear around the world for many, many years to come.
Now I just need to make myself a matching belt.
Leather Love: Madrid
You’d never know from the look of this place all the treasures that it holds inside.
While we were in Europe, we stopped at Curtidos Villaverde, a shop in Madrid that has been selling leather-working tools in the same location since 1887. Jerry was like a kid in a candy store looking at all of the threads, buckles, and tools they had.
Getting into leather-working has opened us up to experiences that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. Being here made me wonder if this place will be around for another 125 years. Will people still be making hand-made leather products? I sure hope so.
Curtidos Villaverde in 1903. Photo taken from the Curtidos Villaverde website.
The Making of Our First Bag
Remember when you sold the first cup at your 2nd grade lemonade stand? Selling our first Restrepo Leather bag felt a bit like that, except a lot better (with champagne, instead of lemonade).
From our first customer, Shoshi:
As soon as I saw the Tayrona Handbag on the website, I knew it had to be mine. I am totally thrilled with my bag and blown away by the craftsmanship. Allowing me to customize the colors to my taste – a rich brown leather combined with a bright green suede interior – gave me a bag that is both classic and completely unique. I get stopped on the street all the time by people asking about where I got my bag, and I always say “Restrepo Leather” with pride!
Juan was excited to get to make Restrepo Leather’s first bag. Not to mention, he loved the leather/suede color combination (and so do we!). We sent Shoshi some photos of the making of her new Tayrona Handbag while she waited for it to arrive, and now we wanted to share them with you.
Cesar’s Favorite Restrepo Leather Bag: The Bolivar Weekender
We recently chatted with Cesar Giraldo, our head designer, about his favorite Restrepo Leather bag. The following is an excerpt from our conversation.
What’s your favorite Restrepo Leather bag that you’ve designed?
My favorite? Probably the Bolivar Weekender. I really love that bag.
How did you come up with the design for the Bolivar Weekender?
I don’t follow fashion trends. All of my designs are timeless. I think when you make a quality bag, when you use quality materials and keep it simple the bag will always be in-style. The Bolivar Weekender’s design is inspired by the classic horse saddlebags I’ve always admired. I often look for inspiration from historical uses of leather, like with Colombian rancher culture. This bag has a pretty universal design, actually. There are some really amazing designs for saddlebags in Southern Argentina, Mexico and the U.S., for example. Saddlebags are almost always made for practicality. The Bolivar Weekender is a beautiful design, but it’s also a utilitarian one.
How many hours does it take to make a Bolivar Weekender strictly by hand?
A long time. At least 24 hours of work to finish the Bolivar, but vale la pena (it’s worth it).
Mapmaking: We Live in Red Embossed Leather
I was drawn to cartography because it is both an art and a science. Sure, there are rules to follow, there are computers to assist the process, but at the end of the day, you are a human being in the act of creation. Someone else would make that map differently from you – they’ll go through a different process, or they’ll select a different color or font.
(As it goes with leatherworking. You may have a great eye for design, but if you aren’t exact about making sure that edge is perfect or ensuring that the holes you punch aren’t in a straight line, your product won’t be nearly as beautiful.)
Perhaps this map leans more towards the “art” end of the spectrum. But another purpose of a map is to draw people in, to make them look at something that they otherwise wouldn’t. There’s no better way to do that than with an interactive map. So, I decided to put our leather and suede color swatches to good use. This map shows each of the localities of Bogota (not including Sumapaz, but that’s a different story) as a different leather or suede color. I like to think of this map like I think of Restrepo Leather bags – classy, but unique.
I guess this means we live in Red Embossed Leather and the Restrepo neighborhood is in Brown Suede?
I made this map using TileMill with some help from OpenStreetMap.
Jerry’s Custom-made Workbench
When Jerry decided to purchase a new workbench for his in-home workshop, it was only logical that the table be custom-made by the neighborhood carpenter, Ronnie.
One’s workbench is a special thing, and it has to be suitable for the artist’s work preferences. A good workbench is as tall as the leatherworker’s hips, wide enough to spread out all necessary tools and materials, and made with strong wood. So we collaborated with Ronnie to design the perfect workbench for Jerry: a smooth, long table with four legs, no bells and whistles. Like with most good things in life, Jerry had to wait a little while for his new workbench. Ronnie runs a small-scale operation, which although meant a longer wait time for Jerry, ultimately means the quality and beauty of his work is exceptional. We popped in frequently to chat with Ronnie and the gang and check out the progress of the table.
Where in the world is Restrepo Leather?
Jerry and I recently traveled to Poland for a wedding and decided to visit a few different countries. I’d been all over Latin America, but it was my first time to (western) Europe. In addition to checking out all of the beautiful people, we found ourselves checking out different styles of leather bags for inspiration.
The Old World history and architecture also provided plenty of inspiration. Here’s a little Restrepo Leather quiz: we took photos throughout our trip with our leather business cards in front of famous European landmarks. Can you guess where and what they are? The answers are at the bottom, but no cheating!
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Answer Key:
1) Paris, France: Eiffel Tower
2) Paris, France: Arc de Triomphe
3) Paris, France: Notre Dame
4) Versailles, France: Palace of Versailles
5) Paris, France: Dinner
6) Krakow, Poland: Wawel Castle
7) Madrid, Spain: Plaza Mayor
8) Warsaw, Poland: Castle of Culture and Science/Eurocup Fan Zone
9) Krakow, Poland: St. Mary’s Basilica
Suspenders: Provocative or Classy?
At one time suspenders were considered to be undergarments, and it was quite risqué to show them in public. In 1938, one town in Long Island, New York, even tried to prohibit the use of suspenders without a jacket.
Like many important fashion movements, braces, as suspenders are known outside of the U.S., are the brainchild of 18th-century France. What started out as simply pieces of ribbon tied to trouser buttonholes has evolved into a fashion icon as eminent as the top hat.
Restrepo Leather’s Co-Founder Jerry Tolochko recently found that his favorite jeans were a bit loose, and that was the only excuse he needed to make himself some leather suspenders. Though no longer thought of as provocative, they’re still in style.
Editor’s note: We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback about suspenders. We wanted to highlight some leatherworking that Jerry has been doing in his free time, but for now, Restrepo Leather will stick to strictly selling leather bags.
A Custom Restrepo Leather Bag for MGMT’s Lead Singer, Andrew VanWyngarden
In March, world famous rock band MGMT came to play a show in Bogota. They stopped by the workshop where all Restrepo Leather bags are made, which was especially exciting for Juan Carlos, who’s a big fan. Lead singer Andrew VanWyngarden ordered an amazing custom leather bag that we’re mighty proud of!
Photos from Bogota’s Famous Leather District, El Restrepo
In a small neighborhood in southern Bogota sits a dynamic community of leather workers, designers and vendors. It’s no coincidence that this neighborhood, El Restrepo, is the namesake for our company. A short stroll through this historic leather district offers tremendous insight into the leatherworking community in Colombia. In El Restrepo, leather is more than a commodity. A whole community has formed around leather, carving out a space for creative connectivity. Here are a few photos we snapped while wandering through Restrepo the other day.
“Cuero Tigres” – “Leather Tigers”
Introducing The Mora Clutch and The Pera Shoulder Bag
Due to popular demand, we’ve just added two new smaller bags to our Women’s line: The Pera Shoulder Bag and the Mora Clutch. Like all of our bags at Restrepo Leather, the Pera and the Mora are strictly hand-made with the highest quality Colombian leather around! Be sure to customize yours with our different leather and suede options!
The Philosophy of “Strictly Hand-made”
This is an excerpt from a conversation we had with Cesar, our head designer at Restrepo Leather. He shared some really inspiring ideas on what the philosophy of “Strictly Hand-made” means for him.
I’ve always felt the need to use my hands. My earliest memories of childhood are of the “feel” of my world, the texture of everything I touched. What I love most about leather is the way it feels in my hands, its different textures, how it speaks to me.
I believe we all possess a lot of power in our hands. The first sense we experience in life is touch. Before vision and smell, we experience touch.
I used to work for a company that made everything by machine. I found myself depressed and bored. Twenty years ago I left to start my own leather workshop making bags entirely by hand. I’m designing and making bags for Restrepo Leather from this workshop.
To make something with your hands is an intimate, natural process. When I work with my hands, I’m at peace. To make is a meditative act.
We must preserve traditional methods of leather-making. By abandoning the use of machines, I’ve returned to something more profound. Manual labor is part of my life philosophy. This is the kind of work that develops the soul.
It is essential that every step of the process adhere to my creative philosophy. I hand-select each hide from the most established tanneries in Bogota. We buy leather that comes from tanneries that have been family-operated for generations.
The individual qualities of a piece of leather inform the way I craft it and what I shape it into. Every bag I make is unique. The color, shape, and texture of a leather bag will change with time and use, revealing its journey – where it’s been, what it’s been used for. Each bag is a work of art, forged over time by its owner and its maker.
Father’s Day
The shoes I wore to my wedding were a pair of 30-year-old shell cordovan bluchers that my father gifted to me when I was in the 9th grade. I didn’t fully appreciate the beauty of those shoes when he gave them to me, but their durability amazes me to this day.
Dad has never been an extravagant spender or dresser, wearing his dress shoes until they got holes in them, patching the elbows of his sweaters instead of going out to buy new ones. In this same vein, he’d been using the same ancient, stained, polyester Dell laptop bag as his briefcase for at least seven years.
As a son who had recently discovered leatherworking, I decided that it was my filial obligation to make him a beautiful replacement. I spent roughly sixty hours working on the sleek, black, double-gusset briefcase that replaced his old clunker. Dad told me that it was the greatest gift he had ever received, and now he has a new briefcase for the next 30 years.
Noah’s Story
Our friend Noah, a hard-working government official (pun intended), doesn’t spend much time thinking about style. When not at work, he typically wears jeans and a t-shirt that’s at least 15 years old.
So when Noah came to Bogota to visit us a few months ago, we knew he would be a hard sell. But when he saw our bags – and talked with Cesar about the time and devotion that goes into making them – he didn’t take all that much convincing.
I stayed with Noah when I went to Washington, D.C. recently. He walks out the door to work each morning at his new job on Capitol Hill, proudly toting his briefcase. Even on casual Friday when Congress isn’t in session, he brings it along.
“So,” I ask. “Are you glad you bought it?”
“This briefcase is, by far, the best impulse purchase I’ve made in my life. I feel like such a baller.”
Restrepo Leather – The Beginning
You never know where life will take you. When Jerry and I quit our jobs in Washington, DC to move to Bogota, Colombia, we didn’t know what to expect.
Then a friend took a leather-working class and convinced us to do the same. We have since spent countless hours in the leather workshop in our neighborhood learning the art.
