We are trying to make very simple goods, so normal, without any pretention. Handcrafted, with passion, giving priority to the quality. The only things that matter are: a beautiful material, a beautiful manufacturing and the right proportions. Only the details we need. Nothing else. Sounds like a non-design concept after all, almost invisible, keeping the essential. Looking for a type of natural and unsophisticated beauty.

All our bags are designed and handcrafted carefully in Germany. The leathers used come from German bulls, tanned in German tanneries working with respect to traditional leather tanning methods.

vinz & erwin
a brand of weststrand ventures.
we add special moments.

Grandfather Erwin was my first and best friend.
He was one of a kind. A storyteller, an adventurer, a poet, a free spirit. His independence and his unbridled “wanderlust” fascinated me from an early age and continue to do so to this day.

For my 18th birthday he gave me his old leather case. A briefcase made of highquality bullhide, filled with his photographs, travel notes and letters.
I loved that case dearly and it accompanied me for many years. That is until I got my first proper job and had to make frequent business trips: the world’s airports and railway stations were my everyday life – always with a trolley, several times a week. Grandfather Erwin’s case was simply not practical enough for life on the move. I couldn’t secure the case to my trolley bag and instead always had to carry it by hand. And so for years it lay unused in a cupboard.

Until the day grandfather died. While sorting through his belongings, among all the boxes and books I not only discovered things about him I had never known before, but also found the braces he always used to wear, wrapped up in an old newspaper.

I had the shoemaker down the road attach the braces to the back of the old case to finally make it more practical for me to use – from then on I would have two of my granddad’s favourite possessions with me wherever I went.

This was the birth of “vinz&erwin”. Since then, the case has ridden piggyback on my trolley bag, securely attached by the braces, and now I can no longer do without it: Grandfather Erwin’s case.

Yours truly,
vinz