The Secret Supplier To The World’s Top Designers

The town of Ubrique in southern Spain is beautiful but remote. It doesn’t have an airport or a train station and even buses are irregular. Its position, nestled at the bottom of a valley surrounded by big hills, means the easiest way to get there is by car. But even then drivers have to navigate winding and often steep roads. The town is around 75 miles south of Seville, nowhere near the world’s fashion capitals of Milan, Paris, New York or London. Yet this collection of white washed houses, known as a pueblo blanco (white town) in Spanish, is where many of the top fashion brands source their leather goods. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermes, Chanel, Chloe, Loewe and Carolina Herrera are all reported to use the artisans here to make things such as handbags, wallets and belts. Read more at BBC News.