Example outputExample output

the leather is not what fails.

i have repaired about sixty bags a year for nine years. in that time i have replaced maybe four pieces of leather, and several hundred handle attachments.

the leather on a full-grain bag, used daily, shows no structural wear before fifteen years. it darkens, it softens, it collects marks. none of that is damage.

the handle attachment is a rivet or a line of stitching that takes the entire weight of the bag, several thousand times. that is where it goes, usually between year four and year eight.

which is worth knowing before you throw a bag away, because reattaching a handle costs between 40 and 90 euros and takes an afternoon.

the part that fails is the cheap part to fix. nobody tells you that, because nobody selling you a new bag has a reason to.