London Tote Midi Whiskey Chevre

This week we give you an behind the scenes view into the production of Belen Echandia bags in our Italian atelier. All Belen Echandia handbags are Made in Italy by a team of expert artisans and all are available to custom-order. London Tote Midi in the new Whiskey Chevre.

We also take requests for leathers and colours that we do not currently have in stock. If a leather is available only in a larger quantity, we give customers the opportunity to order it together and we order the leather especially for them. We had a request for a whiskey London Tote recently and we took these pictures of the bags in production.

When making a London Tote we begin by cutting two different parts (the sides and bottom), to make the panels of the bag.

Then we cut the handles…

Trimmings are made next for the external pockets. Look how cute the little rolls of leather strips are. Cutting leather by hand like this is a very time-consuming process, but it is worth it for the effect it has on the final bag. It is worth investing the time and money to produce a timeless piece and avoid the "cookie-cutter" feeling one gets when receiving a production-line bag made in China.

Quick interlude to see a lovely line of tags. These tags alone take two hours to cut, paint, dry, punch and stitch.

Here you can see the London Tote Midi before its bottom is stitched to the panels.

Three done, five more to go!

Inner zips- we love the combination of whiskey leather with fuchsia lining.

Some customers requested silver hardware, while others chose light gold and brass. This was possible for this group bespoke because we had enough customers that we could make the bags with two different hardware types.

Hand-stitching on BE tags.

First Teresa stitches the tags to their base, and then extra leather is cut by hand.

Here we're adding eyelets to panels. At this point only the handles are missing.

Before using screws Marco and team add professional glue that will permanently fix screws to the metallic eyelets.

All lined up and ready to be shipped out to their lucky owners. Here is the completed and utterly gorgeous London Tote Midi in Whiskey Chevre with matching Angel Purses!