Chapter III · The workshopFermo · 43.16° N

The workshop

One house in Fermo, eleven people, one satchel each a day. This is where the grey hides come in and the coloured ones go out.

The house
A house before it was a workshop.
01 · The house

A house before it was a workshop.

The Trevalle workshop fills the first floor of a 1790 house on Via Perpenti. The six windows on the façade are the six colours of the season; the dye baths sit behind the middle one.

Cardboard, pencil and thirty years.
02 · The patterns

Cardboard, pencil and thirty years.

Every pattern hangs on the wall where it was drawn. When a piece changes, we draw a new card and keep the old one; there are four hundred and twelve of them now.

Dyed last, not first.
03 · The baths

Dyed last, not first.

Most houses buy leather already coloured. We buy it grey, cut and stitch it, and only then dye the finished satchel, so the colour runs into every seam and edge.

The making

From hide to handle, in six steps.

01/ 06
Choose the hide
Choose the hide01

Choose the hide

Calf from the Santa Croce tanneries, chosen by hand. One hide in five is good enough for a flap.

Cut the pattern02

Cut the pattern

Fourteen pieces, cut with a round knife around card patterns we have used since 1994.

Mark and punch03

Mark and punch

Stitch holes are marked with a wheel and punched with a pricking iron, eight to the inch.

Stitch04

Stitch

Long seams on a 1968 machine; the handle and straps by hand, two needles, waxed linen.

Paint the edges05

Paint the edges

Three coats of edge paint, sanded between each, until the edge is as smooth as the face.

Dye and fit06

Dye and fit

Only now is it dyed, in the colour you chose. Brass goes on last. Six hours, one maker.

The grain

Pebbled by hand, not by press.

Most pebble leather is stamped by a heated plate. Ours is tumbled in a wooden drum for eleven hours until the grain rises on its own, so no two satchels carry the same pattern. Move your light across it.

Drum tumbled · 11 h
Calf, 1.3 mm
Tannery: Santa Croce sull'Arno
By the numbers
0123456789012345678901234567890012345678901234567890

hand operations in every satchel

012345678901234567890

hours from first cut to last buckle

012345678901234567890

maker, whose initials are inside the flap

012345678901234567890123456789012345678900123456789012345678901234567890012345678901234567890

Lilac satchels this season, and no more

The rule

Letters from Fermo, four times a year. New baths first, nothing else.

Trevalle is a leather-goods house in Fermo, Italy. Every piece is cut, stitched and dyed by one maker, in the colour you choose.
© 2026 Trevalle S.r.l. · Via Perpenti 14, FermoSix windows. One satchel.

Create a free website with Framer, the website builder loved by startups, designers and agencies.