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  Many of us have a wardrobe that’s too full of clothes and accessories we don’t use. Men too (yes, there are men with lots of clothes in their wardrobe). Fashion magazines talk about the capsule wardrobe, a concept that has become very popular in recent years. For those who have never heard of it, in short, a capsule wardrobe is a minimalist wardrobe. It contains just a small repertoire of around 40 pieces to dress yourself day to day for a season. Yes! In total! Those 40 pieces include shoes and accessories (although underwear and sportswear are left out, along with more specific items like party dresses or clothes for one-off occasions). When I first heard about it, it seemed like a challenge, but...

15 October, 2026

  When I say limited edition, I mean it. It's not a phrase to create artificial urgency. It's not a marketing trick to get you to buy before time runs out. It's simply how Belén Dols works. Each collection has a fixed number of pieces. Once they're sold, there's no restock. There are a few reasons for that, and I think they're worth explaining. The first is that working this way lets me keep a certain closeness with my costumers. I don't want Belén Dols to feel industrial. That's why I make few pieces, with care, and with a result of real quality. The second has to do with the process. My bags are made in artisan workshops in Spain. It's not a mass production that can...

27 September, 2026

Handcrafted in Spain. I put it on every bag. And it's not just a label. We live in a time when almost everything for sale carries some version of that phrase. Made with love. Artisanal. Locally sourced. Most of the time these are words that sound nice but don't actually say anything. When I say handcrafted in Spain, I mean something specific. Belén Dols bags are produced in artisan workshops in Mallorca and Cádiz. They're small workshops, with a limited number of people working in them. I know these people. I've been to these workshops. I know how they work and what standards they hold. I could produce more cheaply elsewhere. There are countries where production costs are much lower and where you can manufacture...

06 September, 2026

  When I tell someone that some of my bags are made with palm pruning fibre, there are two typical reactions. The first: what? The second: really? I like both. Because they mean there's something to explain. And when there's something to explain, there's a story. Here's the story. Palm trees need maintenance. Every year, the dry leaves around the trunk have to be removed to keep the tree healthy and safe. It's routine work carried out all along the Spanish Mediterranean coast, where palm trees are part of the landscape in pretty much any coastal town or city. Once pruned, those leaves normally become waste. They're shredded, composted, or simply disposed of. No one pays them much attention. Until someone decided they could be something else. Palm pruning...

20 August, 2026

  It's the question I get asked most. And I'm always glad when people ask it. Does it smell of apple? No. Does it rot if it gets wet? No, either. Is it actually durable? Yes. I get the confusion. When someone hears "apple leather" for the first time, the most natural thing is to imagine something fragile, organic in the most literal sense, maybe with a smell. Something that's clearly not what you want in a bag you'll use every day. But apple leather isn't that. Apple leather is a technical material made from the waste left over from processing apples. The skins, the seeds, the pulp the food industry throws away. What normally gets binned. That waste goes through a transformation process where it's ground down, mixed with other...

05 August, 2026

  For years, my hands knew leather before they knew anything else. I knew how to place every pattern to use every last centimetre. I could tell the quality and type of leather just by touch. I could tell a good hide from a mediocre one, and even the animal it came from, just by running my hand over it. I was good at it. And that's exactly why, over time, I stopped being able to do it. It wasn't some lightning-bolt revelation. There was no single moment where I decided to change my life. It grew slowly, the way anything grows that you can't keep ignoring. Every time I held a hide in my hands, I thought about the animal it had been....

14 July, 2026