Brusque House, the Art of Ageing Leather

It is with expert hands that Tetsuya Sato is able to give your shoes an aged effect and the aspect of refinement that accompanies. His passion for treating leather led him to open the Brusque House studio in the Aoyama district of Tokyo.

With white gloves, a shirt and numerous pots with different dyes, waxes and polishes, the art of patina requires rigour, honed technique and high-quality equipment. Sato scrapes, bleaches and dyes leather non-stop, from shoes, to wallets, and sometimes even car seats.

Accelerating the effect of time on leather requires, paradoxically, long hours of work and training. Before stepping out solo in 2015, Sato trained in patina at the French house Berluti, part of the LVMH empire, and pioneers of the technique during the 1980s. He then trained at Corthay, master independent bootmaker and legend of the Parisian shoe scene.

In Japan, clients most frequently request gray, brown or blue finishes, discreet and work-appropriate. Yet this hasn’t stopped the artisan from running wild with the art form. In his atelier or during his travels, he creates rainbow-coloured pieces in yellow, purple, pink or green, or, for the most eccentric of clients, multicoloured leather.