14 Satisfying Details About Your Métier
Behind The Seams
09 February 2023
1. Influenced By Icons
Our inspiration comes from things that seamlessly blend form, function and soul, particularly vintage cars and watches from the 1960s, a time when many iconic designs were reduced to perfection. Like the Rolex Pan AM GMT Master which was the first watch used to tell the time across two time zones with the simple turn of a dial. Or the vintage Alfa Romeo Spider, designed so you can reach behind you to close the hood with a simple snap.
2. Racing Colours
All our colours are picked from vintage Porsche palettes. Each shade is timeless, rich, warm and unique.
3. Hidden Depths
Every Métier piece is designed for motion, for convenience, and with a specific purpose in mind. Almost every bag comes with a hidden detail behind its relaxed exterior, from a magnetic closure compartment for your phone on the back of the Rider backpack, to a pull-out strap on the small wallets. Once you discover them, you’ll wonder what you did without them.
4. A Full-Bodied Lining
Every bag is lined with alcantara, a microfibre used in vintage luxury cars known for its durability. The house colour, Amarone, is the colour of Melissa’s favourite wine – a rich north-Italian red – and took nine months of lab tests to perfect.
5. Favourably Weighted
It took us two years to develop our unique method of built-to-last yet lightweight leather crating. Each bag has an intricate recipe underneath the surface, sometimes with over 300 unique patterns each with varying thickness to serve a specific purpose. This meticulous process ensures no unnecessary weight is added.
6. Well Rounded
The base of all of our bags are rounded so that when it is filled and hits you at the hip, it is soft like a pillow.
7. A Logo Blessed With Longevity
The foil used in our logos come from the same suppliers used to restore old cathedrals in Italy to ensure they truly stand the test of time.
8. Hi-Fidelity Hardware
All of our hardware is made from solid brass. Every snap, zip and buckle is meant to evoke a satisfying sensation like the clicking of a vintage Leica camera. The springs in all of our locks were re-engineered for six months in order to mimic the sound and sensation of a Porsche door closing. While most zips are cut to size from a roll, ours are made to measure by the highest quality manufacturer to ensure the smoothest of motions.
9. Finished By Hand
All of our edge painting is done by hand as a final step in the process (or 11 steps to be precise). A small brush is used to paint around the bag. This meticulous process ensures the edges are silky-smooth and polished no matter the thickness. The most impressive example of this can be seen on our paper-thin wallets and small leather goods.
10. Printed With Personality
Our house pattern – dubbed From Dusk Till Dawn to reflect its on-the-go application – takes influence from Art Deco and merges with geometric tessellations found in classic Arabic architecture. An artist from Paris stippled the pattern with 6,000 dots in every diamond and six unique diamonds for the 36,000 unique dots in each repeat. We identified six different densities from heavy to light to create a fading effect from left to right.
11. Tested For Time
We hand stitch the main pressure points using thread normally used to make shoes. This reinforcement technique and the usage of extra-strong thread ensures longevity of each piece. Each bag is then tested in a facility in Italy that simulates 20 years of use; wind, rain, 10kg of stones and some vigorous shaking.
12. Beautifully Worn
Like a fine wine or your favourite pair of jeans, every Métier is designed to get better with age. Tough enough to prevent damage but soft enough to develop a natural patina, each bag authentically reflects the journeys of your life.
13. Handled With Care
Each one of our Perriand handles are hand-braided by artisans outside of Florence, which is only one of a 21-step process that makes up each handle. The rope that goes inside is measured precisely to be comfortably gripped, and a hidden reinforcement can be found beneath the lining to ensure the bag feels sturdy even when you’re carrying a little extra weight.
14. Modularity In Sync
Taking cues from Bauhaus furniture design, our pieces are created to modularly work together so you can customise your bag to your needs, and evolve it as your needs change. The Stowaway, for example, is an elegant crossbody by itself but it also clips inside larger womens’ bags for additional versatility. The Runaway is designed with the globetrotting multitasker in mind; to effortlessly keep all your essentials in order as a smart portfolio but also able to seamlessly clip into most of our larger bags. Our packing pouches are also perfectly dimensioned to stack and our wallets to slot inside.
