Short answer: Portugal, the Spanish town of Ubrique, and Paris are Europe's three best-known leather-goods regions — but they got there in completely different ways. Ubrique's leatherwork is tied to a craft tradition locals trace back centuries; Paris built its reputation in the mid-1800s as the birthplace of the modern trunk and handbag house; Portugal's leather-and-footwear industry became a global force mostly in the last 50 years, through industrial scale rather than ancient lineage. Coneli manufactures in Portugal — and that newer, industrial-not-aristocratic story is closer to the truth of what "made in Portugal" actually means than the heritage language used elsewhere in fashion.
Fast Facts: Three Regions, Three Different Stories
- Ubrique, Spain — a town of roughly 17,000 people where around 75% of the workforce works in leatherware (marroquinería), producing an estimated €900 million a year across dozens of family-run workshops, according to a 2015 Monocle report.
- Paris, France — home to the malletier (trunk-maker) trade that gave rise to today's handbag houses, with Louis Vuitton founded in 1854, Hermès in 1837 as a harness workshop, and Goyard tracing its lineage to 1792.
- Portugal — posted a record €2.347 billion in footwear and leather-goods exports in 2022, per industry body APICCAPS, built on an industrial base that only became the country's dominant trade in the 20th century.
- Coneli manufactures its bags, belts, and accessories by hand in northern Portugal, using plant-based materials (Desserto® cactus leather, OLEATEX® olive leather) that neither Ubrique's traditional ateliers nor Paris's historic houses were built around.
Ubrique: The Workshop Town Behind Luxury's Biggest Names
Ubrique is a town of about 17,000 people in the Andalusian hills of southern Spain. According to a 2015 report by Monocle magazine, roughly 75% of its workforce is employed in the leatherware trade, spread across dozens of factories and small family-owned workshops known locally as boliches. The town's own trade association, Empiel — founded in 1977 and representing more than 500 regional producers — traces local leatherworking skills back to Roman times, refined later under Islamic rule and subsequent Spanish kings, per its general secretary's account in that report.
Ubrique's leather trade is not a museum piece. A December 2021 report by trade outlet Leatherbiz quoted the town's mayor, Isabel Gómez, saying Ubrique regularly hosts representatives from Chanel, Dior, Loewe, Givenchy, Prada, and Lanvin — though, as Gómez herself pointed out, most shoppers carrying those brands' bags have no idea Ubrique made them. That's the town's defining tension: deep technical expertise, almost none of the brand recognition. Separately, Marie Claire has reported that Scottish label Strathberry produces its bags across five Ubrique workshops, each piece taking around 20 hours of handwork.
What Ubrique has never had to do is diversify its materials. Its workshops built their reputation on conventional leather, sourced today from regions like Palencia and Valencia after a 1960s government decree closed the valley's own tanneries to protect the local water supply.
Paris: Where the Modern Handbag House Was Born
Paris's leather-goods reputation runs through a specific trade: the malletier, or trunk-maker, documented as far back as Diderot and d'Alembert's 18th-century Encyclopédie. The first dedicated malletier houses opened in the city in the mid-19th century, several of them still operating today. Louis Vuitton opened in Paris in 1854 and is credited with inventing the flat-topped trunk — lightweight, airtight, and stackable, a real improvement on the domed trunks it replaced. Hermès started even earlier, in 1837, as Thierry Hermès's horse-harness workshop near the Madeleine church. Goyard's lineage runs back further still, to a trunk-making business called Maison Morel founded in 1792, which François Goyard bought and renamed in 1853. Moynat, founded by Pauline Moynat in 1849, rounds out the group of 19th-century Paris houses still trading on that history today.
What ties these houses together isn't a shared workshop town the way Ubrique is — it's a shared moment: the rise of rail (and later transatlantic) travel through 19th-century Paris, which created sudden demand for well-made luggage, and a city that was already the seat of fashion and high society to sell it to. The craft stayed concentrated in Paris because the clientele, and later the fashion houses themselves, stayed concentrated there.
Portugal: A Newer Story, Built on Scale Rather Than Lineage
Here's where Coneli's own home turf tells a more honest story than most "heritage" marketing admits. Portugal doesn't have an Ubrique-style claim to Roman-era leatherworking, and it doesn't have a 19th-century malletier scene producing houses still trading on 170-year-old names. São João da Madeira — one of Portugal's most important footwear towns and still nicknamed Capital do Calçado ("Capital of Footwear") — only became dominated by shoemaking after its earlier hat-making industry declined in the decades following the 1940s, according to the town's own historical record. Portugal's leather-and-footwear industry, in other words, is a 20th-century industrial success story, not an unbroken craft lineage stretching back centuries.
And it's a genuinely large one today. Industry body APICCAPS reported Portugal's footwear and leather-goods exports hit a record €2.347 billion in 2022, up 22.2% year-on-year, with footwear alone — 76 million pairs — topping €2 billion in export value for the first time. That scale, concentrated in northern Portugal's cluster of specialized workshops and suppliers, is what lets a small, young brand like Coneli find skilled hands at all: the same stitching technique, material handling, and quality control built up over decades of shoe manufacturing transfers directly to bags, belts, and accessories.
What Portugal's ateliers generally haven't done — and what neither Ubrique's traditional workshops nor Paris's historic houses were built to do either — is work routinely with plant-based materials. Coneli's bags, belts, and the Interchangeable Belt Buckle are hand-assembled in family-run ateliers in northern Portugal using Desserto® cactus leather and OLEATEX® olive leather, materials that most of the region's long-established leather workshops still don't process as standard. That's a genuinely different position than either Ubrique or Paris occupies: borrowing Portugal's industrial-scale manufacturing skill, while asking it to learn a newer material.
How the Three Regions Compare
| Region | Known for | Historical roots | Scale (most recent reported figure) | Associated names |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubrique, Spain | Hand-constructed luxury leather goods, often made for other brands | Craft skills locals trace to Roman times (per Empiel, 2015) | ~75% of the workforce in leatherware; ~€900M/year industry (Monocle, 2015) | Reported client visits from Chanel, Dior, Loewe, Givenchy, Prada, Lanvin (per the town's mayor, 2021); Strathberry production (Marie Claire) |
| Paris, France | The historic handbag and trunk-making house | Malletier trade documented from the 18th century; major houses founded 1792–1854 | Several 19th-century houses (Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Goyard, Moynat) still trading today | Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Goyard, Moynat |
| Portugal | Large-scale, high-quality footwear and leather-goods manufacturing | Footwear became the dominant industry in towns like São João da Madeira mainly after the 1940s | €2.347B in 2022 footwear/leather exports, +22.2% YoY (APICCAPS) | A dense base of specialized, mostly unbranded workshops and suppliers — including Coneli's own ateliers |
Where Coneli Actually Fits
Coneli isn't trying to out-heritage Hermès or out-produce Ubrique's workshop district — neither claim would be true, and this blog's own standing rule is not to publish a claim it can't verify. What's genuinely true is simpler: Coneli builds its bags, belts, and accessories by hand in northern Portugal, inside a manufacturing ecosystem that earned its reputation through 20th-century industrial scale rather than an unbroken artisan bloodline — and it asks that ecosystem to work with plant-based materials most of its own long-established workshops don't use as standard. That's a specific, smaller kind of claim than "centuries of heritage." It's also the honest one.
FAQ: Portugal, Ubrique & Paris Leatherwork
Is Ubrique's leather tradition really older than Paris's?
Ubrique's trade association says local leatherworking skills trace back to Roman times and were refined under later Islamic and Spanish rule, per a 2015 Monocle report. Paris's leather-goods houses, by contrast, mostly date their founding to the 18th and 19th centuries — Goyard's lineage to 1792, Hermès to 1837, Louis Vuitton to 1854. If Ubrique's trade-association account is accurate, its roots run considerably further back than Paris's named houses, though Paris's malletier trade is the better-documented, source-verifiable history of the two.
Does Coneli manufacture its bags in Ubrique or Paris?
No. Coneli's bags, belts, and the Interchangeable Belt Buckle are hand-assembled in family-run ateliers in northern Portugal, not in Spain or France.
What makes Coneli's use of Portuguese manufacturing different from a typical "made in Portugal" bag?
Most of Portugal's established leather and footwear workshops are built around conventional leather. Coneli uses plant-based materials instead — Desserto® cactus leather and OLEATEX® olive leather — which require different handling during cutting, stitching, and finishing than cowhide.
Are Ubrique or Paris known for vegan or plant-based leather specifically?
Not based on the sources checked for this article. Ubrique's reputation and Paris's historic houses are both built on conventional leather craftsmanship; none of the sources used here describe either region as known for plant-based materials.
Which brands are confirmed to manufacture in Ubrique?
Marie Claire has reported that Strathberry produces its bags across five Ubrique workshops. Ubrique's mayor told Leatherbiz in 2021 that the town regularly hosts representatives from Chanel, Dior, Loewe, Givenchy, Prada, and Lanvin — a claim from the town's own mayor, not independently confirmed brand-by-brand in the sources used here.
Last updated: October 2026.
Methodology & Sources
Facts about Ubrique, Spain are drawn from: Monocle magazine's November 2015 report "Cutting a Dash" (Issue 88) on Ubrique's leather industry, workforce share, industry value, and Empiel's account of the region's craft history; Leatherbiz's December 2021 report quoting Ubrique mayor Isabel Gómez on client brands and the town's ambitions; and Marie Claire's reporting on Strathberry's production in Ubrique. Facts about Paris are drawn from Wikipedia's entry on the malletier trade (founding dates for Louis Vuitton, Goyard, and Moynat) and Wikipedia's entry on Thierry Hermès (the 1837 founding of the Hermès harness workshop) — both treated here as basic, low-risk historical/founding-date facts rather than disputed claims. Facts about Portugal are drawn from APICCAPS's reported 2022 export figures (via Portugal Resident, February 2023) and Wikipedia's entry on São João da Madeira for its footwear-industry history and "Capital do Calçado" nickname. Facts about Coneli's own materials and manufacturing are drawn from this blog's own previously-verified product data (Desserto® cactus leather, OLEATEX® olive leather, hand-assembly in northern Portugal).