Hi all, thanks for your discussion!
We are extremely grateful for your interest and humbled by the outstanding reviews of our Alano. We take extreme pride and joy in our work, and focus every day on making outstanding products.
I'll try to answer a few questions that seem to pop up:
The regular cases:
Yes, they fold flat with the excess being able to show on either the spine side or the open side.
This does NOT apply to the Wingtip, nor the exotics. They do not fold flat because of the properties of the material used. They're spines do not fold more than a 90 degree angle back on itself (typing mode).
The Portenzo Alano:
They are absolutely exquisite, I know, I 'm biased, but it's true. I go back and forth between my Midnight Alano (for dress) and my Composition (for casual), even though I can make any case I want.
The Alano will not fold flat. Personally, I have never found that to be an issue. They fold semi-flat, and because of the way they are made, provide an excellent 'grip' for one-handed use.
They are private order right now because we simply could not keep up with more demand. All of our cases are made by hand, in-house, we don't farm them out.
Midnight and Buck Naked are a bit thicker than the Dark Chocolate. That is just the way we received our order of this leather. Our tannery produces excellent leathers, but they are a bit of a mystery to deal with sometimes.
The Midnight and Chocolate are extremely durable and wipe clean with a damp cloth. I beat the hell out of mine (Midnight Black) and it stays clean as a whistle.
The Buck Naked, on the other hand, is really 'buck naked'! it is a vegetable tanned leather with no dies or topcoats. It will acquire the patina of use with age. You can certainly oil/polish it and slow that process down quite a bit. I recommend leaving it naked until it gets a little 'uniqueness' to it, then use your oil/polish of choice to kind of slow the process.
The corner system:
They will never come loose, they will never wear out.
After a few hours of use, they compress slightly to mold to the shape of the iPad. You can take your iPad in and out as many times as you like.
Our corners are truly a non issue. They only get talked about because other manufacturers cases fail on this point.
Horizontal position?
Yes, you can put any of our cases in a horizontal position. If the surface is too slick for any reason, just use the elastic as a 'catch', as in this photo.
I hope that helps, and thanks again for your input and reviews,
Darin and Team Portenzo!
. I also had my eye on the Vaja before, although the design and leather are just great, it's a bit pricy to me.
