Aurora and Aldo Rossi go back further than this conversation. They first met years ago, in Aurora’s early days as an agent and producer at Blanpied Rubini in Paris, when she was placing photographers on set and Rossi was still working the other side of the camera. Their paths never really separated after she left agency work, and this conversation, conducted in his studio, is less an introduction than a continuation of one they’ve been having for a long time.
Aurora: What inspires your designs?
Aldo Rossi: My designs are mostly inspired by the desire for them to be long-lasting. I want them to last for generations — I want you to be able to pass a bag along to somebody else. I also want it to be strong, so that it never gives out on you, and that informs the design and some of the techniques I use. The form of anything I make follows the function — there’s nothing extra, there’s no fluff. Everything really has a reason for being there. Some of those reasons are about strength, some are functional, but very few things — besides the materials themselves — are chosen just as extras.
Aurora: What is your typical process for creating a new piece?
Aldo Rossi: Messy! I get an idea in my head and I want to make it immediately into the final product. I want it to look perfect right from the first go, so I start with the materials I think will be the final materials, expecting it to be perfect the first time around. Obviously it’s not, and it takes several rounds of edits afterward. Nothing really starts from a drawing on paper — it’s through making and editing pieces until I feel it’s as good as it can be, even knowing that other inspiration will come along later to improve the design. On the Marseille bag, for example, I had it just where I wanted it, but there was one spot at the top, where the horizontal leather straps go around the bottom of the bag, that was pushing the leather out into an ugly shape. It took me a long time to figure out how to indent that leather on the horizontal straps so they remained flush, while still being strong enough to keep the bag’s top shape.
Aurora: Where do you source your materials, and why?
Aldo Rossi: As much as possible, I try to use materials from here in the United States, both for financial reasons and because I believe we have good materials here that deserve to be used. Some of the leather comes from different parts of the world — Europe, Australia, mostly Europe. The European tanneries are still, for the most part, superior for finer leathers to what we have here, and there are importers that let leatherworkers get hold of some of the nicest European leathers. One of the purses is made from a leather called Russian leather, made at the oldest tannery in England — it’s a retro-engineered leather from the 1700s. The original method had vanished, and by lucky happenstance some of it was found and then retro-engineered. It’s completely vegetable-tan leather that takes over a year to make, and it’s a really beautiful process. I enjoy working mostly with vegetable-tan leathers, and with materials that come from other small craftspeople or smaller workshops like mine — I’ve always believed in that.
Aurora: What are your favorite materials to work with, and why?
Aldo Rossi: My favorite leather to work with is vegetable-tan leather. There are really beautiful vegetable-tan leathers, and one of their advantages is that they patina over time. I personally don’t like things that are pre-aged or pre-distressed — I like what I have to show my own story. I like to buy something new and pristine and let the years of use show through its patina.
Aurora: Are there any specific tools or techniques you find essential in your work?
Aldo Rossi: There are really beautiful tools in leatherworking — some of the most beautiful come from very traditional leatherworking places like France and England, and they’re extremely strong and beautiful, so most of the tools I use are from there. Machine-wise, an industrial sewing machine is imperative. The Marseille bags are sewn both by machine and by hand, using a traditional saddle stitch. A saddle stitch has two advantages: one, it’s an extremely strong stitch, where a single thread has a needle at each end, and each end is put through every hole, forming a figure eight at each stitch — this means the stitch can be cut at any point along it and it won’t unravel. The other advantage is that a hand saddle stitch is very beautiful from both the front and the back, whereas a machine stitch, which unravels easily if cut, is only really beautiful from one side.
Aurora: How do you maintain consistency in quality across your handmade pieces?
Aldo Rossi: The consistency in quality, especially with handmade goods, mostly comes from a very strict adherence to not cutting any corners, and to fixing mistakes when they happen — and they happen fairly often, a lot of them in the hide itself. It’s more a matter of staying very strict to the principle of going back and fixing those mistakes. One single stitch that’s slightly askew, or done backward, or where one thread went over the other instead of under, means the visual flow of the whole piece can be compromised — and sometimes you don’t see it until ten, twenty, or thirty stitches later. Consistency of quality means you have to go back and undo those twenty or thirty stitches just to correct that one small mistake. Another important aspect of quality is not cutting corners on materials — not choosing lesser leathers or lesser fabrics just to save a buck.
Aurora: Can you describe a challenge you faced in quality control and how you overcame it?
Aldo Rossi: Some small, seemingly obvious design choices actually come as the result of trying to fix a quality issue. On the Marseille bag, for example, it’s important to me that the bottom of the bag be one solid piece, so that rubbing against the ground doesn’t fray the fabric or the materials so much that it creates rips, or the bag is no longer waterproof, or the strap doesn’t hold. Originally, the vertical straps that go around the bottom of the bag went around the outside of the canvas and the outside of the leather, which meant that as straps, they were the first thing to touch the ground — rubbing against it constantly and potentially getting snagged, ripped, or torn. My first idea was to stitch the suede bottom piece, stop the stitch, let the straps go free, and then pick that stitch back up again — I wanted the straps to be free-flowing, able to hook a surfboard, a boogie board, or a roll of canvas, so I didn’t want them stitched into the side of the bag. But ultimately that solution led to the idea that the suede could be pulled away from the bag entirely. It took a long time to figure out how to put slits into the suede so the straps could tuck into it, slide around the bottom, and come up the other side. Now the straps are protected by the suede, which is extremely scratch-resistant, puncture-proof, and waterproof, so they’re as protected as the bottom of the bag, while still remaining free-flowing enough that anything can be tucked into them.
Aurora: What do you enjoy most about being a designer?
Aldo Rossi: I don’t really think of myself as a designer, per se. I realize I have to design, but as I said, my process is really trial and error rather than conceptual or written down on paper. In the whole process of being a designer and a brand founder — and really operator, for the time being — I have to have my hands in everything, from making the pieces to thinking them up, to getting them out into the marketplace and presenting them to people I hope will appreciate them and support the brand.
Aurora: What advice would you give to aspiring designers in the handmade accessories field?
Aldo Rossi: I’ve actually had this conversation recently with the kids of some friends of mine who are finishing high school and about to start college in creative fields. As I was coming up, a lot of our inspiration came through experience — through museums, through books — but even with a lot of museums, books, and exhibitions, it’s still a fairly finite collection of inspiration to draw from. I was saying to these kids, who want to go into creative fields, that their new competition isn’t necessarily other designers — it’s the whole of AI, which is effectively the whole of human knowledge, everything that’s ever been created, everything that’s ever been done. It will be difficult to stand out in that context. So my advice to them is to make sure they’re doing something they absolutely love — that they’re doing it for themselves, and that every single creative decision, every design decision, is one they can stand behind and justify, one that’s pleasing to them. I don’t think it’ll be pleasing to other people if it’s not pleasing to them first, and they won’t have a heartfelt love for what they’ve made otherwise.
Aurora: How has your background in fashion photography influenced your approach to accessory design?
Aldo Rossi: There are a couple of ways my background in fashion photography influenced how I work now — not necessarily the actual taking of pictures, but during the years I was a fashion photographer, I had the opportunity to meet several great designers and watch them work — including the likes of Alaïa, who would sit in his studio until very late, three or four in the morning, hand-sewing garments on models. Watching somebody like him, who knew his craft at the deepest level and created techniques by hand, was very important to me — it taught me that I have to know how to make what I’m making. I have to learn whatever needs to be learned, invent whatever needs to be invented, or incorporate whatever techniques need to be incorporated. Secondly, fashion photographers — especially at the time I did it, mostly before digital photography — used to carry around a lot of really heavy equipment, and we traveled a lot. It gave me a very strong appreciation for things that were well-made, sturdy, and could hold up over time. We traveled with boxes of photographs, prints, contact sheets, and film — all of this stuff meant that whatever contained it, and that we carried through airports, on buses, in and out of cars and taxis, had to be rugged, and of course we wanted it to be stylish too. That informs my brand a lot — I want the things I make to last through time.
Aurora: Are there specific techniques from photography that you apply in your design work?
Aldo Rossi: One of the main carryovers from photography to making things is the ability to look again at one’s own mistakes. When you’re photographing, you have an idea in your head of what you want the outcome to be, but often something happens — one or two frames out of a series of twenty, thirty, or a hundred — somebody was walking by, somebody blinked, the thing they were holding fell, there was a blur — and even though that image doesn’t correspond exactly to the image you had in your head, oftentimes that proves to be the best picture. It’s the same with making things — mistakes happen, and rather than just throwing that thing away and never looking at it again, it’s important to take a second look. Maybe something bigger than yourself was at work that made that mistake happen. I can give a concrete example: the blue ticking fabric on the Marseille bag. When I first used it, my plan was to use it right side out, so it would be a really dark blue against the canvas as the lining. The first time I used it, I installed the pocket backward. Rather than cut away everything I’d done and start over, I took a second look — and noticed that the backside of the ticking fabric was a softer blue that actually worked better with the canvas. The blue looked more washed out and flowed better with the canvas, especially the brighter colored canvases. That’s just one example of taking a second look at what started as a mistake and ended up looking better.
“Something bigger than yourself is sometimes at work when a mistake happens — it’s worth a second look before you throw it away.”
Aldo Rossi is a leatherworker and bag designer, formerly a fashion photographer, working from a studio where each piece is built, edited, and hand-sewn — often with a traditional saddle stitch — in vegetable-tanned leather and heavyweight canvas. This conversation was conducted by Aurora. All works pictured are by the designer.
