THE BRIDGE

The Bridge was set up in 1969 at Scandicci, the leather district outside Florence, by five local craftspeople, and took its present name in 1975. It has stayed with vegetable-tanned cowhide throughout, which is the whole proposition: the leather starts pale and stiff, darkens with handling, and is meant to look better used than new. The company has belonged to the Piquadro group since 2016. That makes this one of the few brands here where wear is not straightforwardly a fault. Our records hold no matched model lines, so judge by the leather itself — an even, deep patina is worth more to most buyers than a pale unused example, while water staining, dried-out grain and cracked edge finishing are not. Brass hardware and hand-stitched handles are the other things to look at.