--- title: Joe Lotuff description: One by one, we're interviewing every member of our Providence studio team—designers, artisans, directors, and everything in between. Read on for a conversation with Joe, one of our co-founders. image: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0213/4994/files/joe-lotuff_912df710-41b5-49e6-bcd8-a4936613a499.jpg?7436578703780415546 --- [** ](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/joe-lotuff#) [![black_Lotuff_logo.jpg](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0213/4994/t/13/assets/logo.svg?10524817447150324571 "black_Lotuff_logo.jpg")](http://lotuffleather.com) ## Meet the Team:   Joe Lotuff By **Liz Silvia** on Jun 17, 2016   •   Topic: [Meet the Team](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/meet-the-team) --- - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) ![](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0213/4994/files/joe-lotuff_912df710-41b5-49e6-bcd8-a4936613a499.jpg?7436578703780415546) Joe Lotuff is one of the two founding brothers of Lotuff Leather. Inspired by a desire for top-quality product and the tradition of American craftsmanship, he works to ensure the vision he's created for the company is realized through his team. Here, Liz interviews him about manufacturing, vintage cars, and the studio. **This isn't your first foray into business. How does that former experience inform what you're doing with Lotuff this time around?** Well, the first successful company was Berkshire Blanket. I was proud of the business, but it was difficult to see really good product that we helped to create and build in our Ware, MA factory moved overseas so as to keep the company viable and competitive. Berkshire was successful enough financially that with Lotuff, we can hold fast to our convictions and do what we want to do: make something really exceptional right here in New England. There has to be a real commitment on our part, and it has to be steadfast.  I'm a third-generation manufacturer—my family jokes that we have a tradition of training our children in manufacturing and paying them just little enough that they feel compelled to go and start their own business (laughs). So what I've always wanted to do in this business is to be known for making something exceptional. Something you can show your friends and that you can be proud of. That guides everything: being proud of what we do and how we do it.    ![](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0213/4994/files/joe3.jpg?7436578703780415546) **How did you decide to get involved in the leather goods industry, as opposed to something else?** I became a seeker while I was at Berkshire, someone who recognizes that there's a difference between good quality and great quality, even though it's hard to put your finger on that difference at times. Like seeing a made-to-measure suit versus a bespoke one, for example. You have to recognize that with the latter there's a step—and maybe it's one or maybe ten—that moves one beyond the other for the care taken in the product's creation. So, I was looking for a leather bag and was having trouble finding one. What I was looking for didn't seem to still exist, and I thought, "Maybe there are other people like me looking for the same thing." People said we'd have to be crazy to do this, because at the time the proven model was to produce cheaply somewhere else. It's those other seekers, looking for great quality American-made items, that allow this business to happen. Especially with the Internet, customers who research these things can seek, find us and purchase with the click of a button.  **You're somebody who's very much into vintage cars. Can you say anything about whether or not this interest has influenced why Lotuff as a brand is dedicated to making the old new again, so to speak? ** The nice thing about great old cars is that they touch a nerve every time you sit and turn the key. What you have now in cars is more like an appliance, but what you get in vintage cars is an experience. Pre-electronics, before ABS brakes and all these things, you had something real that depended more on the driver than on the vehicle. Vintage cars react to your input, as should our bags, and driving a vintage car with a well-crafted bag in the boot gives me a real sense of well-being.  And the construction, the leather, the wood on the dash, the thoughtfulness that went into the engineering of these cars, they're a testament to mechanical ingenuity. It's like a farmer who maintains his original tools instead of buying new ones, and this idea is appealing to me. Some things can be maintained indefinitely, and that's what I hope people will do with our products.    ![](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0213/4994/files/jo4.jpg?7436578703780415546) **What's been the best change you've witnessed in the company from where Lotuff started to where we are now? ** One of the best things about our company today is our commitment to production here in our own studio, and the best change is the growth of that studio through adding the individual souls who are committed to this process. They're inspired to do their best, and you can't pay someone to do that; it has to come from internal motivation and a sense of pride and care in one's work. Having my name on our product is a reflection on my family and on me, so treating people right is a must, and to see these people benefit in a positive way by working with us is what makes me the happiest. The act of making, and the positive effect it's had on the people. To me, that is happy change and happy progress.  **There's a discipline to being successful in sailing, which is one of your favorite things to do. Are there any applicable lessons there for this business? ** A sailboat, like a business, is a contained object. Every little component of it is part of a whole, and because of that you really have to be focused on every small detail all the time. It all makes a difference.  Building a compatible team that shares a desire to win, a strategic vision, and a willingness to work for results is important, too. Before a sailing race starts, the result is in a way already mostly determined by the work that's gone into the preparations of the boat and crew. The same thing happens in a business: it takes shared strategic vision and thoughtful tactical decisions. The way you choose your team, your chain of command, dictates what you can do and you all have to be passionate about it.  In both sailing and in business, you get trained to focus on details that others don't even know exist. In both, there are a hundred little things, each one variable that when added together expertly form a successful effort.  ### Subscribe to Our Blog ### Leave a Comment ### Posts by Topic - [12 Days of Gifting (12)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/12-days-of-gifting) - [A Lotuff Life (3)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/a-lotuff-life) - [Gift Guides (2)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/gift-guides) - [Gifts with Personality (7)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/gifts-with-personality) - [Making the Best (116)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/making-the-best) - [Meet the Team (13)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/meet-the-team) - [The Essentials (112)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/the-essentials) - [The Weekender (145)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/the-weekender) - [Travel Guide (76)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/topic/travel-guide) ### Popular Posts ### Blog Archive - [May 2017 (20)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/05) - [October 2016 (18)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/10) - [March 2017 (18)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/03) - [August 2018 (18)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/08) - [August 2016 (17)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/08) - [April 2018 (17)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/04) - [May 2018 (17)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/05) - [October 2018 (17)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/10) - [September 2016 (16)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/09) - [November 2016 (16)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/11) - [April 2017 (16)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/04) - [June 2017 (16)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/06) - [March 2018 (16)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/03) - [July 2018 (16)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/07) - [February 2018 (15)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/02) - [July 2017 (14)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/07) - [June 2018 (14)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/06) - [September 2018 (14)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/09) - [March 2019 (14)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/03) - [November 2017 (13)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/11) - [November 2018 (13)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/11) - [December 2019 (13)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/12) - [February 2017 (12)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/02) - [August 2017 (12)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/08) - [January 2018 (12)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/01) - [September 2017 (11)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/09) - [October 2017 (11)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/10) - [April 2019 (10)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/04) - [June 2016 (9)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/06) - [December 2017 (9)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/12) - [December 2016 (8)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/12) - [January 2017 (8)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2017/01) - [August 2019 (8)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/08) - [December 2018 (7)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2018/12) - [May 2019 (7)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/05) - [July 2019 (6)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/07) - [September 2019 (6)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/09) - [June 2019 (5)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/06) - [October 2019 (5)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/10) - [November 2019 (5)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/11) - [January 2019 (4)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/01) - [February 2019 (4)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2019/02) - [September 2015 (3)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2015/09) - [July 2016 (3)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/07) - [May 2016 (2)](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/archive/2016/05) [Contact](https://lotuffleather.com/pages/contact) [About](https://lotuffleather.com/pages/our-story) [Stockists](https://lotuffleather.com/pages/stockists) [Terms & Conditions](https://lotuffleather.com/pages/terms-and-conditions) [Customer Service](https://lotuffleather.com/pages/customer-service) [Sitemap](https://lotuffleather.com/pages/sitemap) ![](https://blog.lotuffleather.com/hubfs/Lotuff%20Logo/logo.svg "logo.svg") [EMAIL US](mailto:info@lotuffleather.com) [  Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/lotuffleather/) [[fa icon="twitter"] Twitter ](https://twitter.com/LotuffLeather) [[fa icon="facebook"] Facebook ](https://www.facebook.com/LotuffLeather) [[fa icon="pinterest"] Pinterest ](https://www.pinterest.com/lotuffleather/) 1 Sims Ave, Providence, RI [info@lotuffleather.com](mailto:info@lotuffleather.com) [888 763 2247](tel:18887632247) © 2026 Lotuff Leather. 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