The motorcycle workers next door, who were now my friends, offered to drive me to the atelier where they were sourcing their leather from. We ended up in the north of Milan and I was following the group down a small staircase into a basement. The staircase opened to a stunning atelier and this young Italian man was blasting music and creating a beautiful fashion collection with leathers and suedes.

He pulled out his leather textile book for me to look at and gave me the contact information for his supplier. From this meeting, I was able to arrange a few meetings in Tortona, the fashion district of Milan, with some leather suppliers and manufacturers.

I met people who sourced leather from Spain, Tuscany and Turin, but nothing seemed to be a perfect match. They were all able to provide the highest quality leather, but they were not able to assemble the purses. So I would be using multiple manufacturing channels to arrive at my final product which would increase all of my costs and would lower my ability to monitor the quality.

I thanked all of my contacts and came to the conclusion that while this was a great idea, it was likely not feasible at the time. But, one of my contacts came back and said he had one more person for me to meet. He gave me directions and I took the metro from Milan all the way north to the last stop. An older Italian man picked me up at the metro and we drove for another twenty minutes. He spoke minimal English and I spoke minimal Italian but we managed to make small talk about my purse idea and he showed me his clothing line, which was hanging in the backseat. We finally arrived at a small house in Monza and were greeted at the door by a man and his two little dogs. He invited us in and showed me all of his amazing leather creations. He produces for Gucci, Versace, Furla, and Valentino, to name a few. I was absolutely blown away. He handmakes everything in his house with a small team and every single piece that he creates is of the highest quality. He sources the leather, threads, metals and stamps and completes the entire production process on his property. I knew that this was meant to be and I was so grateful to him for making time to meet me. He offered to take me on as a client and try a small production run.

I met the amazing manufacturer that I work with now about five days before I left Milan. I came back to the United States and stayed in touch with him on WhatsApp. Once I was back in Colorado, I began ordering cheap purses on Amazon and Asos that were similar to my design idea. I would draw out my designs with exact measurements and mail them to Milan.