The Ponte GR is built from horse leather - equine hide with a grain so tight and muscular it resists the hand before yielding to it. Daniele Basta sources his hides from Italian tanneries that work exclusively with food production waste, then vegetable-tans each piece over weeks using natural bark extract. The result is a leather that arrives stiff, dense, and carrying the warm scent of tannin and resin. The green has depth that synthetic dyes cannot produce: layered, shifting between forest and moss depending on how the light falls, marked with the natural veins and color variations that are the signature of a hide finished by hand rather than sprayed to uniformity.
The 925 sterling silver hardware is cast using the lost-wax method - a process that destroys each unique wax mold during casting, ensuring no two metal components are identical. Oxidized patina pools in the recesses of each silver element while the raised edges catch light. Over time, the silver will darken further where fingers grip the clasp or adjust the strap, writing a usage pattern that no other bag will share. The leather, too, will respond to carry - darkening at the base where it rests against the body, developing creases at the opening, building a surface geography specific to its owner.
Basta works alone in his Empoli workshop, each bag requiring approximately ten working days from cut hide to finished object. The Ponte GR is not a bag designed around seasonal trends or market timing. It is an object built at the pace of one pair of hands.