We’re in Pontassieve! For our first installment we toured Il Bisonte’s creative and logistics center. We witnessed how exemplary bags are created in the Prototype and Patternmaking department.
In Pontassieve, Il Bisonte’s creative and logistics center opened its doors to the Journal. It was an exciting visit. We got to talk to everyone. Filled a notebook with notes. In a handful of posts – one for each department we visited – we’ll tell you what we saw. Curtains up!
CURTAINS UP ON THE PRODUCTION DEPARTMENTS!
We went in order. First department: Prototyping and Patternmaking. Its name doesn’t lie. It’s a room that’s smaller than the others in the center, where decisions are made first – upstream, so to speak – that influence the course of production so much that all Il Bisonte bags in the world seem to branch out from here, starting with a single seedling: the model.
In Practice: the designers think up a bag + here every part of it is drawn on a paper pattern in a 1:1 scale + once the pieces are cut and the leather is prepared, stitched, finished and stamped, the artisans in this first department make a sample bag in order to gauge the possibility of producing it in the various workshops surrounding Florence in a 30-km radius which make up the tight constellation of our handicraft brand.
CREWS AND DIRECTORS, DESIGNERS AND PATTERNMAKERS
Here’s a curious detail. Do you know how designers go about putting their patternmaking ideas down on paper? Using the same tool as film directors. That is, with a moodboard. A few pages containing sketches of the object, sure, but also photos of past bags (something like reference films), color swatches that fit the new project, and whatever else is needed to make it clear to the crew what the filmmakers have in mind. Sorry! We meant to say: the designers and patternmakers.
