I believe I am not the only one. I believe there are people who, like me, look for pared-down objects, made by hand, from fine and long-lived material, functional, without decoration. I believe in the human being, in self-possessed people with character, and they are who I think about while I design and make.

I grew up among horses. Leather was the first material I truly came to know, not through a shop window, but in my hand, on a horse: bridles, saddles, all the tack. The smell of tack in the closet, the smell of a material that works and lives, a material used every day, cared for and repaired, a material that use does not ruin.

I made my first object at eight: a dog leash, with my father’s tools for repairing tack. At fifteen, my first bag and a pair of riding boots. I had no idea what I was stepping into, but the feeling is still there.

Years later, in 2015, I opened the atelier, a space where the walls are white, the houseplants green, the furniture the color of straw. A space held by silence, where every object comes into being through my hands. From leather I choose for its character and for the way it ages. A place for objects that don’t ask for attention, but for service, over the years.

The mark is three zeros, born of the rhythm of the letter O in my name, born of the world I grew up in, born of the aesthetic I came to hold. Zero is clean, zero is nothing and everything, zero is design without design.