The Atelier
A small atelier. A long craft.
Katian is an Italian leather house built on a single principle: that a jacket or handbag made properly, from honest materials, will outlast everything else in your wardrobe. We are not a large company. We do not want to be.
Where it began
Born in Florence, in the Tuscan hills
Katian began in Florence, in the hills of Tuscany, a city that has shaped art and beauty since the Renaissance. Here leather has been chosen, cut and worked by hand for centuries, and we see our craft as part of that long legacy.
We have never made a piece we were not prepared to stand behind. That means a limited range, made carefully, with materials we have chosen ourselves. It also means that when something is wrong, we fix it, because the person who made it is the same person who answers the phone.
Who we are
A family business
Katian is Catalina and Daniel, a husband and wife who choose the hides and cut, sew and dye every piece by hand. For close to thirty years, in the same Florence atelier, the same two people have done the same careful work. When you write to us, you are writing to the two people who will make your piece.
What we believe
Good leather is honest
Good leather is honest. It shows where it has been. It remembers the shape of the person who wears it, the things it has carried, the years it has moved through. We make things that grow more personal over time, that ask something of you in return for lasting.
We do not make trend pieces. We make pieces that will feel right in twenty years because they were made right today.
The leather we use
Chosen the way a tailor chooses cloth
We source full-grain hides from tanneries we have visited ourselves. Vegetable-tanned where the design calls for it. Chrome-free where possible. We choose leather the way a tailor chooses cloth: for its character, for its weight, for the way it will age, not simply for its price.
Every hide arrives in the atelier and is inspected before we cut. We use the tightest, most consistent sections for the visible panels. The rest becomes smaller components. Nothing is wasted without reason.
Custom commissions
Have something in mind?
We take a small number of custom commissions each year. A jacket made to your measurements, a bag designed around what you actually carry. Write to us.
Begin your commission