The Atelier
PARIS 11ᵉ — SINCE 2021
The Atelier, 11th.
Where time is taken seriously.
Behind a discreet door in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, twelve artisans work in quiet rooms above the courtyard. The light is northern. The wood is old. The leather waits on its racks for the hands that know what to do with it.
This is where every ALTO is born — from the first cut to the last stitch, by a single pair of hands. The number engraved inside the bag tells you whose.
The Maison, in three figures.
Twelve hands. Twelve names. Each piece carries the number of the artisan who made it.
Forty-eight hours, from the first cut of the hide to the final wax pass on the edge. Not a marketing number — the time the leather needs.
What we make, we mend. Any ALTO piece can return to the atelier, for as long as it exists.
SAVOIR-FAIRE
Three gestures. One philosophy.
The way a bag is made is as much the bag as the leather itself. At ALTO, we make our pieces the way they would have been made a century ago — slower, by hand, with patience.
I
Vegetable Tanning
Our hides come from the Tarn, in southern France, where the leather is tanned for six weeks in pits of oak and chestnut bark — the way it has been done for centuries. The process uses twelve times less water than chrome tanning, and produces a leather that lives: it deepens, softens, takes on the marks of the life around it.
It is the only way we know how to make a leather worth keeping for twenty years.
II
Saddle Stitch
Every seam in an ALTO bag is sewn by hand with two needles and a single waxed linen thread, in the saddle stitch tradition passed down from harness makers. If one strand of the stitch should ever fail, the other holds — a machine stitch unravels; a saddle stitch endures.
It is slower. It is stronger. It is the only stitch worthy of the leather it joins.
III
Hand Finishing
The edge of an ALTO bag is sanded, dyed, sanded again, waxed, polished — seven passes for a single ridge. It is the small invisible work that separates a bag made well from a bag made quickly.
An edge done properly is recognised by the hand before the eye. It is one of the small honesties we insist on.
THE HOURS
We do not rush the leather.
Forty-eight hours is not a figure we chose. It is the time a piece of vegetable-tanned leather needs to be cut, skived, glued, stitched, edged, polished, inspected, and signed. Faster than that, the leather knows. So does the hand.
We make few things. We make them well.
— Louis Alto, founder
THE EDITION
Twenty-four pieces. Then gone.
Each ALTO edition is made in a single, limited run — most often twenty-four numbered pieces per colour, sometimes fewer. There is no restock, no second run, no shadow inventory waiting in a warehouse.
This is not a marketing decision. It is simply the limit of what twelve artisans can make properly in one season, without compromise. When an edition leaves the atelier, it is final. The numbers engraved inside are the only ones that will ever exist.
CORRESPONDENCE
Visit, by appointment.
The atelier is a working place — quiet, private, kept for the hands and the leather. We open it, occasionally, to those who wish to see the work being done.
If you would like to visit, or simply ask a question of the maker who shaped your piece, write to us. Letters are welcome at any time.
contact@altoparis.com
Paris 11ᵉ — by appointment