Almost everything the Iriarte sisters know about hand-tooling leather, they taught themselves. Four years later, "we're still not geniuses at it," says Sol. But you'd never know it — the bag line is doing well, and when we visited, the pair were in talks with their first American retailer.

Sol (left) and Carolina (right) share equally in all the design and fabrication duties at Iriarte Iriarte.

Both sisters learned to sew from their mother, who was a seamstress; they've been making dresses for themselves since they were young. They spent the majority of the past year working on their first clothing line, whose A.P.C.-ish cuts recall their old private school uniforms.

A view of the showroom and studio, which opened to the public in June. The back of the downstairs space is used to spotlight the pair's vintage finds.

Upstairs, most of the workspace is taken up by a large antique table, which may look familiar — it's from the painting studio of Javier Bardem's character in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, for which Sol worked on the set design.

The studio is filled with strap-cutters, hole punches, carving tools, and special glues that hold the bags together before they're sewn and riveted. The walls are covered in leather straps, patterns cut from craft paper, and images that are inspirational to the duo (we weren't allowed to photograph those).

Hanging from every nook are scraps of the leather they use to make the bags, which comes to them directly from an old Spanish tanner "who works in the countryside with the cows," says Sol.

After they receive the leather, they dye it themselves by hand in shades of brown, navy, and black. It's a messy job.

Since the studio is quite small, the bags go through nearly every stage of production on the worktable, from initial pattern-making to the finishing touches.

Simple metal buckles help give the satchels a classic look — like they could be from almost any time or place.

The finished satchels come in various sizes, from small to large. These are one of five styles from the current winter collection, which will stay in production until next summer.

In the showroom window are more of the winter bags, plus belts, necklaces, and prototypes for a forthcoming collection of leather shoes.

The effect is quite sophisticated, but objects Sol and Carolina keep around the studio, like this tin picturing characters from a 1970s British children's TV show, paint a different picture: “We're inspired by toys," says Sol. "It’s like we’re eight years old."

Another child-like relic: A baby piano the sisters keep stationed behind their sewing table, which Sol rescued from a woman who was throwing it out on the street.

The showroom is located at Carrer de l'Esquirol No.1, in Barcelona's Born district.