The atelier is on the second floor of an old printing house in the 11th, with two south-facing windows and a single sewing machine that has been running since 1972.
We finish each piece by hand. The buttons, the hems, the small things you only notice after a year.
Trained at La Cambre in Brussels, ten years at small Parisian houses before opening the atelier in 2022. Designs and approves every piece.
Thirty-eight years at the table. Was at Lemaire for twenty of them. Pattern-cuts every first prototype before anything is approved for production.
Joined in 2023. Does the hand finishing — buttons, hems, the inside of every seam. Will not let a garment leave the atelier if a single stitch is loose.
Each season opens with a letter — handwritten, posted — to six mills across Belgium, Italy, and Yorkshire. We describe what we are looking for in long-form, not by reference. Samples arrive over the next four weeks.
Every shape is cut three times in calico before we touch the chosen fabric. Most of what we make never reaches the second prototype. The discards become the pattern library.
Seams are machine-sewn. Hems, cuffs, buttons, and the small finishing are done by hand. A single Étretat coat takes between fourteen and seventeen hours from cut to last button.
Each piece is signed with a small label sewn at the inside hem — the name of the seamstress, the date, and the number of the piece within the season. So you know, two years from now, whose hands made it.
Portraits, process, materials, names — all part of the brand. Built end-to-end by Exporado.