After working for major designers, what made you want to create your own brand?
What triggered the desire to create my own brand is a true little anecdote. It was actually the frustration of having products rejected during a collection presentation meeting. I had made some small bags for Christmas for a big fashion house. They found them too "bobo" (bourgeois bohemian) and too expensive for the target audience. And as I was leaving that meeting, some stylist friends told me: "But they're amazing, go for it, just release them yourself!" I didn't think twice; I had them made, I ordered 50 of each – there were three different designs. And then I did private sales, and just like that, the brand was created. I hadn't budgeted anything, planned anything, nothing. So then I was always playing catch-up.
What role do travels play in your inspiration?
I originally wanted to be a costume anthropologist; I've always drawn women, clothes, and all that. When I was very young and had the chance to join Chloé, at that time I thought a stylist's job was to rework traditional costumes by adding a contemporary twist. So, I've always been passionate about embroidery, and indeed, all very traditional craftsmanship.
I worked extensively in Japan, focusing on indigo, dyes, silk... And so I've always been completely nourished by that, and I even traveled a lot for it. So it's completely intertwined. That's why my bag collections are really about embroidery craftsmanship and largely inspired by the Silk Road, by various cultural elements that we encounter. It's clearly about travel.
How do you define the identity of your collections?
Well, it's so personal that it really took me a long time to identify it. In fact, now I know very clearly: my bags are like works of art, like a canvas on which I throw my ideas. So there's always a very precise inspiration, and I go wild with it. I design with beads, it's true that it's mainly beads, cannetille, and all that. My collections are wearable art, they are wearable pieces. It's a bag, it's useful, it's design, so it's useful design, but it's... it's beauty design, I would say.
Can you tell us a bit about your collaborations, such as with the Moulin Rouge or the Institut du Monde Arabe?
Well, it really happened by chance; I didn't go looking for them. It was the museums that came to me at trade shows like Who's Next, Première Classe, professional shows, and especially also the Salon des Musées, which is held once a year. It's a very professional show, and they invited me, saying that I perfectly matched the museums' curation. And I got Notre-Dame de Paris and the Moulin Rouge simultaneously for this first edition I was doing. So that was quite funny, very Parisian. Afterwards, there was the Institut du Monde Arabe, meanwhile the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, now the BNF is coming out... So, I must say, I'm very, very lucky, it's incredibly enjoyable to do.
What, in your opinion, makes an accessory so special today?
Well, I think that even though I really like everything that is very designer, very clean, very minimalist (that's where I'm quite ambivalent), there comes a point where I get a little tired of this uniformity. For many years, color has completely disappeared from our traditional palettes. And I really want to bring back craftsmanship, and color. That's precisely what makes my accessories stand out: their ornamentation.
Why did you choose to make several models?
Because each time I create a design, it's generally a big job of fine-tuning, bead by bead. And I naturally like to have a whole line. So it's true that at first I only released small square bags, which were the beginning of the collections, and then I expanded to have flatter pouches, a slightly less expensive price range, small coin purses that are truly little jewels to pull out of your bag. And gradually, we've just released a whole series of phone pouches, which are super practical and can be carried everywhere. Or small cardholders, passport covers... You know, it often happens when I'm going through customs that an officer says "Wow" like that when they see them.