La Portegna in Madrid: leather bags that call you to the road

There are things that are bought for a week's holiday, and things that stay with a person for life. The Madrid brand La Portegna makes precisely the second kind, because it itself grew out of a dream of endless travel.

In the house where the brand's founder, José Urrutia, grew up, a lion skin was lying on the floor, a gift from Ernest Hemingway to his grandfather. One day José asked where his grandfather knew Hemingway from, and instead of an answer his grandmother took out a photo album: a 1933 steamer voyage from Plymouth to Bombay. Among the photographs was a signed picture of Hemingway kneeling beside his prey somewhere on an African plain.

That photograph reminded José of a time when travel was a thrilling experience and not simply a way of getting from point A to point B. And out of that nostalgic idea grew La Portegna's first collection of travel bags and accessories.

Formally this is a Madrid brand, but its production is located 600 kilometres away, in Ubrique, a white town in the mountains of Cádiz where people have been working leather for roughly a thousand years. And here is an intriguing figure: 75% of Spanish leather goods are made there. And not only Spanish ones: Loewe, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Dior all have their goods sewn in Ubrique, they simply do not write about it on the label.

How La Portegna leather bags are made

La Portegna works with a hereditary craftsman named Antonio, in whose family leather has been sewn for several generations already. A rare working principle for this price category: one bag, from the cutting to the last stitch, is made by one person. Not a conveyor belt of eight pairs of hands, but one craftsman who answers for the object as a whole.

The leather here is tanned by the vegetable method, chrome and synthetic coatings are not used, and at the finish the pieces are treated with Spanish olive oil, which returns suppleness to the leather and gives it a soft sheen. Over time such leather does not fade and does not crack, but darkens and takes on a patina: after five years a briefcase will look even more interesting than on the day of purchase.

And on top of that, at La Portegna not a single stitch is hidden. The knots, the painted edges, the stitching along the edge, everything is put on show, because a perfect structure is part of the beauty. The logic is the same as in good architecture: if it is made honestly, then there is nothing shameful about showing it.

What you can buy: bags, briefcases, belts, shoes

The brand's range is wider than is expected of a "bag brand": men's and women's bags, gloves, briefcases, travel holdalls, wallets and coin purses, belts, shoes, glasses cases, elegant backpacks, even scarves and hats. Right in front of you, the craftsman will apply a monogram to the chosen piece free of charge, initials, a name or a date, which turns it at once into a family heirloom. This, in fact, is what La Portegna sees as its purpose: to create objects tied to a particular person and accompanying them on all their travels.

What it costs and where to buy: prices, guarantee, shops

La Portegna bags cost several hundred euros, which is noticeably more expensive than the mass market but considerably cheaper than luxury, to which the brand neither belongs nor aspires. It is simply a fair price for unconditional quality. And even the guarantee is worded unusually: it is promised for as long as the leather itself lives, but a separate line stipulates that natural wear does not fall under the guarantee. Because the scuffs that inevitably appear on leather are regarded here not as an annoying nuisance but as a fact in the personal "biography" of each piece.

The brand has shops in Madrid and Palma. Your initials are put on the piece right at the purchase, the way travel things were once marked, and La Portegna has deliberately brought this ritual back. From the moment of purchase the bag stops being merchandise and becomes exclusively your own personal thing. In the end, you can get from point A to point B with anything at all. The question is what you will come back with, and travel on with.