From the family archive
Our story
A birthday gift. A family workshop. An idea worth trying.
Nordweg launched in 2011, but the family’s work began long before the brand had a name. It started in southern Brazil, with a shoe factory, a patchwork bag, and evenings spent making the first orders.
Serra Gaúcha · Southern Brazil
The place the story comes from
Nordweg comes from the green mountains of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state. German immigrant families brought their trades to the region, including shoemaking and leatherwork.
The towns around Picada Café grew with those trades. It is the place where Igor’s parents learned their work, where they began a workshop of their own, and where Nordweg is still made.
Early 1990s
It starts with a birthday present
Igor’s parents met at Dilly, a shoe factory in Ivoti, in the far south of Brazil. At home, Marisa collected leather offcuts and sewed them into a small patchwork bag for Igor’s cousin, who was turning five.
On a visit to Gramado, she showed it to a friend who ran a craft shop. He ordered 50 bags. A few weeks later, a sales representative from Rio de Janeiro saw them in the shop and ordered 200 more.
The family had no factory of its own. They had Igor’s grandmother’s garage in Picada Café, and their evenings after work. They asked to deliver the order 50 at a time. The buyer agreed, and they began cutting and sewing.
The family workshop
The garage becomes Emme
The garage became a workshop. The workshop became Emme, a women’s handbag factory. The family made its reputation through the quality of the bags and the work behind them.
Then the market changed. More factories opened, inexpensive imports arrived, and brands that invested in reaching customers became better known. Emme’s bags were still good. Selling them had become harder.
That experience shaped Nordweg: making a good product matters, and so does building a relationship with the people who will use it.
Washington State
A backpack in Washington State
At sixteen, Igor went to Sedro-Woolley, north of Seattle, for an exchange year. He carried a Hush Puppies leather messenger bag made under contract by the family workshop, and kept thinking about ways to improve it.
The stores made an impression too. Trying, buying, exchanging, and returning felt straightforward. A clerk’s mention of a backpack guarantee stayed with him: a company could be confident in its work and make that confidence part of the customer’s experience.
Back in Brazil, Igor joined the family business and began studying business. He wanted to try better photography, a website, and a new commercial approach. His family had built the company with their own hands; they were cautious about changing it.
2008–2009 · The idea
“Men don’t carry bags”
Igor proposed a new brand for men, beginning with bags for laptops and work. The family’s response became part of the story: “Men don’t carry bags. And when they buy one, they don’t spend much.”
He wanted to make the bag he could not find for himself. The workshop had available capacity, skilled people, and equipment. Where an Emme collection used many leathers, his first plan called for one, in coffee brown, and a small group of designs.
It was a practical way to test the idea. If it worked, it could become something larger. His parents agreed. A pattern maker, materials, tanneries, and a branding agency helped turn the proposal into Nordweg.
The brand’s first chapter
2011: a brand of its own
Nordweg launched as its own business in 2011, first through the reseller channels the family knew. When customers across Brazil wanted to buy and had no nearby store, Igor built an online store.
He registered a separate company and became a customer of the family factory, buying its bags and selling them through the store. The new business had its own responsibility, and each sale still supported the workshop.
At first, Igor answered every message and packed every box himself. As Nordweg grew, it eventually became the workshop’s largest customer. The following year, the family dedicated the factory’s production to Nordweg.
Igor’s father had once described a dream: walking into the workshop and seeing the whole production line making Nordweg. In time, that became the real working day. Emme’s chapter closed; its people, craft, and experience continued in Nordweg.
The next chapter
From Picada Café to Austin
International orders began in the mid-2010s, a sale here and there. In 2026, Nordweg opened its first U.S. office in Austin, Texas. The products are still made in Picada Café, where the family’s workshop began.
Iuri manages the factory; Igor leads the brand. Their parents are retired and still come by to visit the team and see the work.
Nordweg means “the northern way.” It honors the family’s German roots and the direction they chose to take. Uma Vida Boa—a good life—is the larger idea behind it: useful products, meaningful work, and more room for life.
A few milestones
Early 1990s
The family workshop
The family begins making bags in a garage in Picada Café. The workshop becomes Emme.
2011
Nordweg
Nordweg launches as its own business, drawing on the family workshop’s craft.
The 2010s
One workshop, one brand
The family factory dedicates its production to Nordweg. International orders begin during the decade.
2026
Austin, Texas
Nordweg opens its first U.S. office in Austin. Production continues in Picada Café.