The studio is one room above a fabric shop on Rua das Flores, with two windows, four industrial machines and a cutting table that came from a closing shirt factory in 1987. It is not photogenic in the way a workshop is supposed to be. It is better than that.
The street, and the shop downstairs
Downstairs sells buttons by the gram and has done since before either of us was born. That is the practical advantage of the location: when a sample needs a different zip or a heavier interfacing, we walk down a flight of stairs rather than waiting for a courier.
It also means we hear what customers actually say. Four people a week come up to ask what we are making and why, and their questions have changed more of our designs than any focus group we could have afforded.
How a piece gets made
Every product starts as a paper pattern and a pile of calico. We make the first sample in the cheapest fabric we can find, use it for a fortnight, and write down what annoys us. The second sample is in the real material. Nothing has ever gone to production on the first sample.
Then it goes to one of four workshops, all within two hours of Porto except the mill in Lancashire. We visit each one at least twice a year, and we pay per piece rather than per hour, which means we have an interest in getting the pattern right rather than in the workshop sewing faster.
The argument about lining
The current disagreement is about whether the Project Tote lining should be interlined. Interlining adds structure and about forty grams, and it stops needle tips poking through. It also makes the bag harder to turn inside out during production, which slows the workshop and raises the price.
We will probably add it, and charge three dollars more, and be right. But it has taken four months of prototypes to get there, which is roughly the pace at which this studio works and roughly why our catalogue is fifteen products rather than fifty.
Why it matters
A small studio cannot compete on price and should not try. What it can do is know every piece it sells, change a design because a customer was right, and answer the phone. That is the whole strategy, and it has worked for six years.