The cutting table was the one in Prune's living room... And the skirts, simple little ones with pockets at the time, occupied the only clothes rack, discreetly but proudly advocating in her living room! Sometimes we forget that it started like that...
Today, nearly twenty models have taken over the double showroom at Impasse Berthaud. At the heart of this evolution of our wardrobe is our desire to offer pieces designed and made locally and ethically since our beginnings.
From Made in Paris to Made in France, how have we developed our production to the rhythm of our desires and yours?
Our production has always taken up residence in the heart of the Sentier. A stone's throw from our initial offices, four from the new ones... We have rarely made a shorter circuit! With ideas tumbling out at a hundred miles an hour and our never-ending creativity, more and more pieces are covering the walls of the rue Greneta showroom. And if we have been able to gently adapt our production rate (expand our panel of suppliers/manufacturers, source larger quantities of materials, etc.), meeting demand and meeting our ambitions has proven to be more and more complicated...
At a time when the COVID-19 crisis has turned our organization upside down considerably, the making of pre-orders has come up against that of the new summer collection, resulting in an unnamed pileup (with Joséphine in tornado / cataclysm mode who must take out all her wedding orders finally maintained)! A real test of our production capacities and our nerves at the same time...
Ensuring the influx of current orders, honoring pre-orders for containment, restocking stocks, creating new pieces for the summer while starting to plan for the fall: enough to give us cold sweats to stay the course!
It was in the middle of the Corona storm that a ray of sunshine appeared and made us want to see further. This ray of sunshine is Manon!
A compendium of energy and optimism who, at the age of 24, has taken over the reins of a factory in Loire Atlantique. A personal challenge for someone fresh out of business school. Nothing stops her, so she learns the trade and takes charge of about fifteen employees from 20 to 55 years old.
She invites us to meet her, visit her workshop, to ultimately produce some of our models there!
Never mind, here, we work on instinct, and on this one, we have a good feeling. A train ticket and an express stay in the region later, curiosity gives way to a crush and a new love story begins for us!
Ask yourself the right questions. “Whatever we produce there”, do not unbalance our current production chain, organize our manufacturing resources between Paris and the west of France… Real challenges not to be ignored!
Now with four round trips on the clock, it's Manon's workshop that generates a thousand ideas every minute. At the same time, how can you resist?! Spend even a few hours in this huge machine, yet on a human scale, where there is absolutely EVERYTHING (cutting, design office, pattern making, quilting, gluing machine, embroiderer, etc.) it's enough to lose your head and launch into our craziest desires!
And that, crazy ideas, we have under the foot! So we say why not? Why not embark on a new, crazy product? The desire to take out our own coat had already been bubbling for a while but had not been possible until then due to a lack of resources...
And there you say to yourself that we are completely nuts! We are going through an unprecedented health and economic crisis and we have decided to embark on the unknown, to export, to project, to expand even more... Well yes! Even if it means taking risks, you might as well do it now. The future is so uncertain, especially for small structures, where will we be in 12, 24 months? It's hard to say but it's not fear that will stop us, we want to push our passion to the limit and create more than ever, without regrets!
So it's a coat and a shirt dress that will come to life under the magical hands of Manon's team! A team that takes us under its wing, accompanies us and gives us the best advice (Big up Mireille and Laurence, big heart with their fingers)!
We talk about finishes, pockets (they don't usually put them, different generations, we can't do without them), we learn from each other and we immerse ourselves.
We watch Manon manipulate complicated EXCELs with our team eyes me-I-stapled-three-pieces-of-fabric-on-a-paper-it-is-good-here-is-my-order!
We tame each other and we build together! Our first bets are online and their successes push us to make this unique collaboration profitable and produce even more. So, we brainstorm: Which product? In what form ? And at what cost? Because that is also what is at the heart of our discussions. We make it a point of honor to offer realistic sales prices in relation to the quality and know-how behind each piece.
Respecting the work of everyone, not getting lost along the way, these are our missions and our daily challenges...
It is soon the shirt, the basic dress and the buttoned slit that we will test there. We take the plunge, we take risks, that's what makes us vibrate, we're not going to hide it!
And spoiler alert, there's even a little novelty sleeping quietly in Loire Atlantique ready to land any day now (in November in real life): the long-sleeved top!
A slightly crazy mini series, because we like to play, bet, challenge each other and thanks to Manon and her golden team, we are not ready to change!
0 comments