Embossed calf with a crocodile impression, stamped to our order in Tuscany.
Rouge is a red with heat left in it, warmer than a true red and clearer than a rust. On an embossed surface a colour does not behave as it does on a smooth one. The raised scales hold the light and the channels between them hold the shadow, so the shade reads at two depths at once and shifts as the bag moves in the hand. It is the most alive surface we make.
The leather is stamped for us at Conceria Alpaca, in Santa Croce sull’Arno, in the Tuscan leather district between Florence and Pisa. The pattern belongs to the tannery. The run belongs to us. Most bags at this level are cut from leather bought finished off a stock range, which is part of the reason so many of them resemble one another. The tannery’s supplychain holds Leather Working Group certification.
This is embossed calf, not crocodile, and we would not let it be mistaken for one. We consider that a feature rather than a disclaimer. There is no CITES paperwork attached to this bag, no permit to carry when you travel, no question at a border and no asterisk beside the purchase.
Calf is firmer than the lambskin we use for the rest of the model, and it holds an impression in a way lambskin never could. It is also cut differently. The scales run in a direction and change in scale across a hide, so the run of the pattern is read before anything is cut, and the panels are placed to follow it across the flap, around the frame and down to the base. A cutting die takes no account of any of that. It takes what falls under it, and the finished bag reads as assembled rather than made.
Nine to fifteen hours go into each piece, carried by one artisan from the first cut to the final inspection. Everything else is as it is across the model. The same frame, the same envelope flap, the same monogram turn-lock cast in solid brass in Italy, hand-finished and plated there in 18-karat gold. Inside, red suede lines the bag throughout, with two interior pockets divided by a suede partition.
