When freedom to travel is only postponed
1 November 2020
Dear travelers,
2020 is the year in which, among the many uncertainties, we have also seen our possibility of traveling being questioned as we have been used to conceiving it, whether it was for a work commitment or for a weekend of pleasure, equipped with the essential, like our inseparable briefcase bag as perfect hand luggage, or even to venture into some new itinerary, putting ourselves to the test and discovering unknown cultures, together with something more than ourselves. We have postponed a long-dreamed departure, postponed the order of destinations, narrowed the boundaries of our projects and improvised some escape, reinventing the concept.
Traveling, moving, staying on the move are all habits and needs that are somehow part of human beings, by culture and physiology, and we hope to be able to do so soon, with the right precautions and some new priorities, but the same desire to leave, with a backpack and a shoulder bag, to bring home a story and those experiences that contribute to define us throughout our lives. Right now, more than ever, imagination is important, that quality that leads us to decline the journey in other forms, as happens when we immerse ourselves in reading a book, and let ourselves be led by the words of its author to other shores. Federico Serrani, as we have repeatedly told you, draws from the imaginaries built in good Italian and international literature to create leather bags and backpacks, handmade, one by one, to accompany us with taste and practicality in the drifts of work and spare time.
In the Montecristo collection, inspired by Alexandre Dumas’ literary masterpiece, we find the colors and atmospheres of the inaccessible island of the Tuscan archipelago. The character depicted by Dumas, his newfound freedom after years of imprisonment and his fictitious identity, behind which he hides to obtain deserved revenge, is hidden among the ground zips of the photographic bags in nude and submarine versions, recalling the colors of the sea that Edmond Dantès will have to sail to return to Marseille and the Tuscan archipelago where he spent the long years of imprisonment. From the adventures of the sailor, Federico Serrani also created the Julie computer bag, in black leather and gold details, which thanks to its pockets and separators allows you to carry with you computers, but also batteries, A4 documents, stationery or everything else. necessary to travel equipped.
To inspire two backpacks perfect for traveling, aboard a plane, an Orient Express train that crosses Europe or a ship that follows the currents of the millennial River Nile, there can be no other than Agatha Christie, the English writer most translated in the world, second only to Shakespeare, and, above all, the queen of mystery, who set her most successful works in these evocative scenarios, made of exoticism and luxury. As a young girl, Christie, to whom two leather backpacks are dedicated, in black and light brown versions, received a domestic education, which managed to stimulate her imagination and curiosity, fed in turn by the travels of her youth. For example, the writer discovered Cairo during a stay in Egypt with her mother, whom she accompanied to spend with her the illness that required a warmer climate than the British one. It was here that she probably collected many of the inspirations that returned in the works written in recent years, but a lot also comes from her readings, which she consumed voraciously since she was a child and which led her to compose her first poem at the age of 10. It is from this curious Agatha, archaeologist, mysterious and traveler that Federico Serrani gives life to a bag like the Kimberley Desert, sand-colored, perfect for camouflaging among the dunes and pyramids.
To still inspire Federico Serrani’s leather bags there could only be Capetown, the capital of South Africa where modern urban spaces blend with the nature that surrounds the city, by land and sea, with those chocolate-colored mountains that return to the brown of the Capetown Chocolate leather bag, and the mist of the morning, which rises from the sea and returns in the Capetown Fog version. And so Emilio Salgari, the novelist who sublimated the shattered dream of becoming a Captain of the Navy with the many works based on pirates and adventurers, for which he drew not so much from travel experiences, as from the tomes he consulted in the library, including maps , atlases and dusty pages of dictionaries, which were enough to outline over 1300 characters and over 200 works, including novels and short stories, such the Queen of the Caribbean, who inspired the Marina cable bag in lemon and avocado versions, but also the backpack computer Lola.
We hope to soon be able to travel again as in the past, in safety and equipped with the essentials: whether it is a backpack on the shoulder or with a bag, whether it is the camera, our laptop or the notebook for notes secured in a pocket. In the meantime, as Salgari and colleagues teach us, we at Federico Serrani continue to plan and dream, waiting to leave for new adventures.
Stefania
