*****J.P. Marcellino - Briefcase REVIEW*****

[payj]

Hello,

I have been a long time lurker here and recently was on the hunt for a good hand-made briefcase. After discovering that only a handful of people exist in the world that are still doing this I realized I was only going to have a few options. After messaging a couple different bespoke mfg I ended up going with Joe. I went with him primarily because he was EXTREMELY responsive and pretty flexible with what I wanted. Nothing seemed to be "written in stone" with what he offered - he is truly bespoke. It took around 100 emails or so to narrow down what exactly I wanted.

I needed it to be easy access, so the Marcellino latch was a no brainer for me. It is simple, elegant and most importantly extremely easy to get in and out of. The traditional briefcase color of tan was not something I wanted. I wanted to accomplish a look that was sleek, sexy, refined yet still looked classy. If the traditional tan buckle look is a Aston Martin, I wanted a Spyker. I bit more edge to it. Because of this, I went with blue. The blue is very dark and in some lighting conditions comes out black. It is gorgeous. The silver hardware was a look I certainly wanted as well, to me it looked a bit more modern. Together, this color combo was perfect.

For the interior I landed on suede. It is an expensive addition to stomach, but well worth it in my opinion. After throwing different color ideas around I went with black. Why? I wanted this to be as utilitarian as possible and black offered a bit of forgiveness if god forbid a black pen hits it. The lighter colors are going to be more prone to getting stained. I will say lint and so forth does stand out on the black where it might not as much with a lighter color. For the divider I wanted it to have pockets so Joe put three in there along with two pen slots. For the exterior I wanted the newspaper pocket, its a nice addition if you need to stick something in there real quick allowing you to do so without opening the case. Also, for the divider I had Joe stitch a piece of leather across the top, which I felt added some class. He used extra thick threading and sewed as low as possible per my request to make sure the leather would not curl i snagged it pulling something out of the case - those fine details are what makes the process so special.

Craftsmanship: Its excellent all the way around. You can tell a lot of time and effort went into it. The quality is like nothing you will fine at your local high end retailer. It stands out from anything you are likely going to encounter in the wild. I live in the PNW, so most people use typical nylon bags etc as fashion and bespoke items such as this are not as common as they are on the east coast or in LA. So it certainly stands out in these parts, yet I don't think anyone notices or cares haha. It's just the MO of the people around here for the most part. Anyways, the quality is what you would expect and then some. nothing to complain about there.

Hindsight 20/20: Nothing really. Buuuuuuut

I am wondering if I went with red suede if I would have liked it more? Why? Just for the extra pop when you open it. Blue exterior for the class, red for the pop. I love the black, as you just can not go wrong with it, but maybe I played it too safe there? In regards to the above about pen marks etc, yup this contradicts that a bit.....

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Here are some pics, that quite frankly do the case 0 justice, but its all I have for now. Here is a link of the case on Joe's website as well.

Thanks!



http://www.jpmarcellino.com/collect...e-luxury-leather-briefcase?variant=3888596995

 

[JP Marcellino]

You caught your briefcase in a really nice light. That blue is almost as difficult to photograph as the red, and if you ask me the overhead lights and the angle catches it perfect,

here's my shot under studio lights and a good cam but yours caught the "blueness" and smooth grain, I'm sure you have that polished nice. I could tell.

Sometimes when we photograph, i just built the thing, I'm tired and I want to get it out so I don't polish as well as I should to represent its true nature. This happens with the red and the brown a lot. red I can understand, when its polish its insane looking like an apple


when its not polished, i want to cry because i know how it really looks


you also caught the suede nice because you can see the depth and how it reacts to the touch.

 

[LA Guy]

Which reminds me, @JP Marcellino , did you ever get a chance to prototype that briefcase to backpack thing that we'd talked about a few years ago?

 

[JP Marcellino]

A few years ago? My attention span starts to fade after 6 months. ha ha, i remember when we were talking about it back then and i did build a prototype, here are some old photos of it below. I honestly got no interest from customers, well I shouldn't say none because it was one of the briefcases I had on display in front of the store window during Christmas and someone took it. To this day I look for it and if i see some hipster on a bike wearing my stolen briefcase, i will do more than words. 2 days before x mas, 3 briefcases, daylight while i was in the back? I'll never forget it.

 

[payj]

Thank you. The pics were taken with my phone (sshh do not tell anyone) in my office. I think the suede is must now that I have it.