Throwback 2023
Santa Croce, Tuscany
18-22th Feb, 2023
The second installment of AS A BIRD's travel journal series.
We will look back on the memories of our travels around the world in four chapters.
This time, I will introduce my first trip to Europe since the pandemic, a trip from Florence to Santa Croce to Milan to Paris in 2023.
In last week's episode, we visited a tannery (leather factory) in Tuscany called Santa Croce and looked back on our encounter with bubble lamb leather.
Click here for the previous article
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After interacting with the local people in Santa Croce, I stayed in Florence again.
I strolled around the city slowly, talking about the city with my Taiwanese friend who I regard as an older sister and who accompanied me to Santa Croce. We talked about family, her feelings during the COVID-19 pandemic, and stories from when she was young that made me want to say, "I've heard that story a few times before."
We had been in touch on the phone, but it had been a long time since we last met in person, so we couldn't stop talking.
A certified sommelier and gourmet, she knows the restaurants in Florence very well, so we enjoyed our morning coffee break, lunch, and dinner in the area.
As I wrote in the first episode, the city of Florence seems a little different than before. At this time (February 2023 ) , it still seems to take some time for the market to regain its vitality. There were very few Asians to see.
The next day, we focused on leather. We moved to Milan to inspect " Lineapelle " , the world's largest materials exhibition. It took just under two hours by train, which runs through central Italy, similar to the Shinkansen in Japan. We arrived at Milan Central Station.
Milan is a familiar city that I have visited many times, so I was able to reach the hotel without any trouble.
That evening, I met up with my former colleagues and seniors from my previous company for dinner. Since I hadn't been able to see them much due to the pandemic, we had a great time catching up and spending the night together.
The next day, I was full of energy from the morning and headed to the Lineapelle venue.
A few days into the business trip, I was feeling a bit tired. I walked around the large venue.
This exhibition is so large that a day's walking will leave you exhausted. It's impossible to see everything in one day, so it takes several days, but if you can see a fair bit on the first day, the rest will be easier.
Over the three days I saw a lot of leather at the venue, but the one that really caught my eye was the bubble rum I saw in Santa Croce.
Strangely enough, as I walked around the venue, images of products started to pop into my head. By this time, a vague idea had started to form in my head that it would be interesting to create a series of leather goods that would be useful to take on trips, as part of the AS A BIRD project, which incorporates the element of enriching travel.
I visited the booth of a Tuscan tannery that I had visited a few days before when they were exhibiting at Lineapelle, and I couldn't help but be curious about that (bubble rum). I asked them if they could mass-produce it.
"Are you sure you want to do that? Of course, we can't guarantee that the grain will be uniform on each piece."
He smiles kindly as always.
Perhaps my feelings were conveyed, because they agreed to produce a small quantity.
If that's the case, the next step is item development.
How can we create items that incorporate functions that travelers will find useful? We will continue to refine our ideas throughout the rest of our European trip.
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This was my first trip to Europe since the pandemic, and in the second chapter of my 2023 journey from Florence to Santa Croce to Milan to Paris, I looked back on the few days I spent traveling from Florence to Milan and visiting the Lineapelle leather exhibition.
We have already launched items using bubble lamb leather . When I introduce the products to customers in the store, I remember this trip and the moment I started making the items as if it were yesterday.
In the next chapter, Chapter 4, we will leave Italy and move to Paris. I hope you will enjoy the next chapter.