Clara Aynié (Buenos Aires, 28 years old) smiles and caresses the table where more than 100 years ago her great-grandfather, the Catalan Ginés, cut leather. “I didn't know my great-grandfather. My grandfather almost didn't either, because he died when I was born,” she says. “But there is something about inhabiting its spaces, its materials, that somehow makes me know them.” She is happy because she just came from a tannery: she got some sheepskins and she enjoys thinking about how and in what design of her new collection she will use them. She smiles and tells the story of her family, of the saddlery; of how the trade was passed from generation to generation.
At the end of the 18th century, Ginés was the first to arrive in Buenos Aires. The consequences of World War I in Europe had convinced him to emigrate from Torroella de Montgrí, in Girona, where he had learned to work with leather, to Latin America. Here, he found a piece of land, close to the racecourse. “The neighborhood was Las Cañitas: inside a cane field, near the Maldonado River, a very favorable place for tanning,” says Clara.
On that land, great-grandfather Aynié built two floors: upstairs, he lived and slept. On the ground floor, he set up a workshop where he also sold saddles, reins and reins. The saddlery was founded in 1920, and since then it has operated as a family business. The eldest son always took charge. When it was his turn, Clara's father, Gustavo, took it as a natural inheritance, without questioning it too much. Clara and her sister Martina wondered, jokingly, which of the two was going to continue with the business. And both of them, after looking at each other, said: you're not crazy.
Clara Aynié's venture began as a hobby and, three years later, she sells in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Miami, New York, Barcelona and Paris.Mariana Eliano
But, since she was a child, Clara liked fashion. When someone wanted to know what she was going to do when she grew up, she responded: “Designer.” She loved dressing up and dressing up, choosing her own clothes. After high school, she studied Visual Arts and then switched to clothing design.
He worked at Harper's Bazaar
magazine
and
Catalogue
. And, then, for five years, with designer Jessica Trosman. There, she would tell her that a client would approach her and say: “Are you Aynié, from the Aynié saddlery?” Or they would ask her if she had anything to do with the saddle business. And she, as if it were obvious, that yes, of course, it was her father's. Her response was praise or comments: frames that had lasted a lifetime.
“From so close, I couldn't see it. For me it was something natural. Furthermore, I was charged with an energy that did not excite me, but with all this praise for the business the idea arose: what if I did something related?” She proposed it to her father and he, again and again, asked her if she was sure.
“My dad is a fan of sailing,” says Clara. “He likes this world, quality, designing, but in reality his great passion is the river. However, she couldn't choose. The saddlery was his family business and, being his older brother, he had to take charge. On the other hand, I think he wanted to know if he did not hesitate to undertake a business in a country like this, with such a changing economy.” Each time her answer was the same: yes, she was sure.
07/21/2023 - Report on the Aynié leather goods establishment in Buenos Aires. Clara Aynié, great-granddaughter of the founder-© Mariana Eliano ---- PIEFOTO ---- “Quality, durability and craftsmanship” are the ideas of the family saddlery that Clara seeks to take up in her designs.Mariana Eliano
He also asked him to settle in a room where leather was cut: the wall covered with old molds of saddles, the floor with dust. And he, after thinking about it, accepted. The first thing Clara did was turn that room into an office. Then, she thought about making purses. But how? She came from making large collections, with many items, colors and sizes. If she wanted to put together a small collection, to begin with, she had to make at least 12 products. At that moment, she remembered the sewing kit that her grandmother had given her. She liked it as an accessory: she kept her cell phone inside her and carried it everywhere. She thought, “I should do something like that.”
The material, he decided, would be leather. She tried it. But he didn't fit her, he didn't fit her the same. He said, “I'm going to make it out of fabric.” He knitted and, although it was simple, she liked it. She was happy. However, the comment from a friend of hers shocked her: “Are you going to sell that? It's nice, but it almost doesn't close..." Two days later, she accepted that her friend was right. She started thinking about how to modify it and came up with a cross between leather goods and clothing techniques: hand-woven waxed cotton thread and sheep leather. A reversal of her grandmother's sewing kit.
Then, using the same materials, he continued with scarves and belts. But what no one had imagined happened: in March 2020 the pandemic broke out and, in Argentina, a strict quarantine was established. “I started offering the products online and everything I had produced to sell in six months was sold out in a week,” he says. On social media they wrote to her and asked if she had more silk masks, if there were still purses left. "I could not believe it. Do you seriously want to buy my things? He asked me.
The current entrance to the saddlery.Mariana Eliano
The venture began as a hobby and today, three years later, it sells in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Miami, New York, Barcelona, Paris and Tokyo. Clara realizes, and her father repeats it to her, that she has several things in common with her great-grandfather: a passion for materials, for making things in a certain way, a certain obsession with details and perfection. .
There is an idea that has been on his mind since he started working in this office. Are you going to take over the saddlery? “On the one hand it makes me anxious. I would not innovate in products and materials. But it is a century-old brand that does not have social networks or an internet presence. And today you can do many things to boost a business,” she says smiling. “What does my father think? He has mixed feelings. I think he would like it, but at the same time he must think: 'Be careful about touching that thing that my grandfather used more than 100 years ago.'
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