Longevity

We are careful with the word sustainability, which has been used to sell a great many things that are nothing of the kind. We would rather set out what we do and leave you to judge it.

Venus has been the same object in our sky for the whole of recorded human attention. We are not making anything on that scale, and we will not insult the comparison by pretending otherwise. The principle we took from the name is simpler: beauty worth the word does not need replacing every few seasons. That position has practical consequences.

This is our whole environmental position and the only one we think survives examination. The significant harm in this industry is not the material. It is the rate of replacement.

A bag carried for twenty years and then handed to a daughter has been a better decision than any number of well-marketed alternatives bought and discarded across the same period.

Every choice we make is directed at the twentieth year rather than the first: solid brass instead of alloy, suede instead of twill, relief padded from behind, edges built in layers rather than in a single pass.

We hold very little stock and we do not overproduce in order to discount later. Unsold inventory is waste that has already consumed the material, the hours and the transport.

Lambskin, suede and solid brass all age, and all can be brought back. Coated synthetics cannot. When they fail, they fail finally.