Noise Goods Interview | With Love From Portugal

Instagram has been in our daily diet of social media for a few years now. It's an invaluable tool for wanderlust + inspiration as much as it is for killing time of the daily commute. For me I've found it incredibly useful as a way of discovering talented designers, illustrators and brands from all over the world. One of those such is a leather accessories brand from Portugal named Noise Goods. After a few weeks of chatting to the man behind Noise Goods, Pedro Fernandes, I decided to place an order for their handmade Coin Wallet. Following on from I decided to turn our emails into an interview, they have a worthy story to share.

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Buckets & Spades - First off, tell us a little but about Noise Goods, your background, and how you started the brand?

Pedro Fernandes - I was motivated by the need of change. I've never cared much about the fashion industry and I know we already have too much clutter around us. I realised that all my buying choices were pretty bad, but my wallet was even worse. I bought a lot of wallets that lasted a couple of months, and even worse, I really didn't much liked them. I started developing my own wallet just for fun–the Coin Wallet–and quickly found myself with the knowledge to start a brand motivated by those principles. Developing products that last longer than the majority, have a rugged, acute aesthetics, and that are environmentally and economically more responsible by choosing local resources.

I can relate to that; as the saying goes, "you buy cheap, you buy twice". I must admit, the world of leather goods intrigues me, especially smaller items that everyone could find a function for. So, in terms of design how did you come up with Noise Goods? We’re you designing for yourself and how has the reaction been to your product?

The Coin Wallet was an attempt to create something compact, and originally for myself only. The essential pocket wallet: ID, driver's license, bank cards, and to store loose change. Something simple and not too bulky, almost like a second phone. I wanted to work with vegetable-tan leather, knowing that its eco foot print is still one of the smallest; being a long-lasting material that develops the most beautiful patina, and having it locally sourced. So the biggest challenge was to tame its natural stiffness and comply with the objective. But as soon as I uploaded some pictures of the prototype into my portfolio, they started to be shared on social networks and a few enquiry emails came through. That moment I knew the design was somehow charismatic so I started to develop the brand and some more products in the same spirit.



Social networks are a powerful tool and it's how I discovered Noise Goods too, I know a lot of my friends use it for similar reasons. Tell us about the design process, how did you learn to construct your products? 
 
I learnt leathercraft by gathering online resources, by trial & error and with some technical advices from my leather-maker friends. The first batches I sold were entirely made by myself. Currently we have a partnership with two leathersmiths, with around 30 years of experience. This means we can answer to orders and have margin to develop new products.

Trial & error is something we can all relate to, it's an invaluable part of the design process. And fun of course! So what products do you see yourself developing next?

A backpack is currently being developed - the brand will have more wallet styles, and we're starting to think about the female customers as well. They're great supporters of our work too.

That sound promising, a few busy months ahead then! I've had tones of compliments from my Coin Wallet up to now, especially on Instagram, so I expect nothing other than quality to follow. Finally, could you name a few blogs or websites your enjoying right now?

I have a "database" of return-to blogs which I visit weekly, and in which I include Buckets & Spades of course (too kind - Mat). But I also have a soft spot for unknown territories, finding something new. I recently stumbled onto blvck-mirror.tumblr.com, immediately started dissecting the archive. And I'm also checking five-secondskin.blogspot.com, I really like his style.

Cheers for chatting to us Pedro.  You can find more information about Noise Goods here.

Thanks for visiting,
Mat

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