La Portegna

In searching for some travel slippers, I recently came across La Portegna, a small Spanish company located in Madrid. The founder, Jose Urrutia, has strongly nostalgic and romantic ideals about traveling. Part of this was passed onto him by his grandmother, who travelled to Africa with Ernest Hemingway. Part of this is also from his own travels around the world, which he did alone in his early 20s.

His company aims to create products that supports his idealism. He sells some random leather goods, such as belts, but most of his products are orientated to make travel more of “an experience” and not just a destination. There are dopp kits and multipurpose pouches, as well as some pretty handsome duffles. They all seem like they would make traveling feel a bit more romantic.

I think most appealing, however, are his laptop bags and travel slippers. These are all handmade out of vegetable tanned leathers and canvas, and they’re pretty nicely designed. The laptop case, for example, has a few pouches for your cords and hard drives, and the travel slippers can either come with or without a penny loafer strap.

I was close to buying the travel slippers, but the shipping charge is unfortunately quite high ($60 to ship slippers?). I confirmed with the shop that this is indeed how much they charge, and there are no distributors in the US. Monocle had them for a more reasonable shipping cost, but they’re all sold out in my size. You snooze, you lose, I guess.