Picada Café, Brazil
Our world
The story, place, people and ideas behind Nordweg. Explore the six chapters below.
01 · Our story
From a gift to a family workshop
Our story begins with a family, a birthday gift, and a garage in Picada Café, in southern Brazil.
Years later, that same workshop gave Igor the place to test a new idea: leather bags for laptops and work.
Early 1990s
A family workshop
Leather bags made after work in a garage in Picada Café. The workshop becomes Emme.
2011
Nordweg begins
Igor launches Nordweg as its own business, with the family workshop making the first bags.
The 2010s
One workshop, one brand
The factory dedicates its production to Nordweg. International orders begin during the decade.
2026
Austin, Texas
Nordweg opens its first U.S. office. The products are still made in Picada Café.
02 · The factory
Inside our factory
In Picada Café, the work moves from drawings and cut leather to assembly and finishing. These photographs follow our Legacy collection through the workshop.
01 · Drawings and leather
Drawings and patterns
A drawing and its paper patterns sit beside cut leather. This is where the design meets the pieces that will form the bag.
02 · Parts at the bench
The parts of a bag
Leather panels, straps, hardware, and tools laid out at the bench. Each will have a place in the finished piece.
03 · Hands and tools
Hands and tools
A maker works a leather component by hand. The workshop combines handwork with the cutting and sewing equipment around it.
04 · The edges
At the finishing bench
A close look at finishing the edge of a leather component—one of the details your hand meets in use.
05 · The Legacy mark
The mark
The Legacy mark is pressed into a leather component at the workshop.
06 · The finished form
From pieces to a bag
A completed bag beside the drawings at the bench. The separate parts have become something ready to carry.
07 · The final details
The final details
A maker completes a Legacy certificate at the workshop table.
03 · Our people
The family and the team
Marisa and her husband began the workshop. Today, Iuri manages the factory and Igor leads the brand, alongside the makers and colleagues who bring Nordweg to life.
The family, today
Igor and Iuri’s parents are retired now. They still visit the workshop to talk with the team, see the work, and share the experience of those early years.
04 · A good life
Uma Vida Boa
Portuguese for “a good life,” Uma Vida Boa brings together useful work, strong relationships, learning, courage, beauty, and connection to the world around us.
A word from our founder
“Nordweg’s mantra is ‘a good life,’ and that idea applies to every part of our day-to-day life. We aim to be the kind of company we would want to be customers of, making things easier—from customer support to the way we work internally.”
05 · Our mission
Useful work. A good life.
We make useful things and build a company where good work helps people build a good life.
For the people who carry Nordweg, and for the people who make it.
06 · Our brand
The northern way
Nordweg means “the northern way.” The name honors the family’s German roots and gives the brand a direction to follow.
It began with a new idea inside an existing workshop: make the bags Igor wanted to use, and build the kind of company he wanted to buy from.
