Coltesse

I started eight years ago. At the time I was working in artistic direction but the technical aspect of clothing already fascinated me. The idea of ​​setting up my own brand had been growing on me for a while.

I was finally able to get started when friends set up Salon Man. I offered them my first models of shirts and I sold 130 of them. I couldn’t believe it: I had the feeling that it was the beginning of glory! Thanks to them, I met my first retailers in Japan. I started with a wholesale model with a network of shops that distributed my products. We sold to up to 50 stores in Japan! I love Japanese fabrics, which are of high quality and I would bring them home from Japan. But I already felt that there was some sort of arrhythmia in my work: I was bringing the fabrics from Japan, then assembling the pieces in Portugal, while my first market was…Japan. So I was sending them back there…it was driving me mad.

In 2020, with the pandemic, production came to a stop, and everything the fashion industry already knew got thrown back into its face. All blockages and inconsistencies. I realized that I didn’t necessarily want to produce and grow in the way I had originally envisioned. My team – five faithful colleagues – and I decided to think about a new way of doing things. In particular by pre-ordering. That coincided with our arrival at La Caserne. We wanted to build the brand with a real notion of proximity, producing as much as possible in Paris. Today 80% of our pieces are produced in France (Paris, Normandy), a small part is assembled in Portugal. Pre-ordering is a particular way of working, it represents much less volume than a “normal” production. We work better but less by offering fewer pieces. This winter, we will only be presenting four new pieces!

We also try to communicate as much as possible about the know-how, with videos tied to our hands, showing the different stages of production in close-ups. What seems obvious to us is not necessarily so for customers.

It is true that suppliers often require a minimum order for fabrics, and this often creates an impediment with the pre-orders. We have to adapt and keep stock. Fortunately, the fabrics we choose are timeless and we are able to keep them for the following season. The fourth piece for this season is a pretty cool quilted reversible jacket, made with an upcycled fabric and a wooly hat. If we have any left, we’ll make scarves. But to be able to meet the deadlines and release our product within four weeks, we still have to anticipate our purchases.

The quilted jacket I just mentioned is a good example. In general, the quilting contains polyester, that is, plastic. It’s a “no-go” today, but it’s also very difficult to replace, mainly for technical reasons. Why ? Because polyester brings durability to the fabric and often allows the garment to hold up over time.

We looked for a way to replace this material, even if it was going to be more pricey, and we ended up finding someone who creates a type of wadding by recovering waste wool from French sheep and mixing it with a derivative of corn starch. It is a new generation padding that keeps you warm and is completely biodegradable. Thanks to many encounters, we managed to produce a piece that meets our expectations both in quality and in aesthetics. And at the end of its life, it won’t be a polluting product. We are also working more and more with deadstocks – ends of unused rolls – which we recover via Nona Source. And of course, we spend a lot of time talking with the workshops so that they can adapt their way of doing things to our needs.

I believe there were at least a hundred and fifty applications. We applied for the award last May, and we were lucky enough to be one of five finalists. We then found ourselves in front of a jury of a dozen people, including the winners of the previous year. I think what they wanted to reward was a global work of reflection. A job that we have done in recent years. The director of the fashion jury Christine Phung spoke about it in her speech, it is important today to understand that the reality of fashion is also an economic reality. We must succeed in transforming the industry at large, and the way people consume on a large scale. Garment creation is often thought of in primarily aesthetic terms. But for me, we won thanks to the consistency of our project. We have values ​​that stick with a real contemporary imperative: that of producing eco-designed pieces with fine aesthetics. I have the impression, thanks to Coltesse, of being an active member of the Parisian community, of helping the workshops to develop, of working with them… because we are constantly looking for solutions.

This profession is made interesting by its tremendous amount of facets. From design, to communication and production, you never get bored. You meet many different people, who are talented and have a lot of knowledge. It’s a lot of work, and it’s hard to stand out.

The “pitch” is: Coltesse is a men’s brand which questions timelessness through a wardrobe of unconstrained and unbridled everlasting pieces. I don’t know how to best qualify them. At first, I didn’t like to talk about “classics”. But I studied theater, and in stage acting, we continually work on the same classics while adapting them differently, by giving them a new reading. Revisiting classics is telling a new story. I think it fits quite well with the image I have of Coltesse. We take on the classics to tell a contemporary story.

We want to move forward, create objects, have various sites. I don’t know if they will be ephemeral places or actual shops. In any case, the prize will help us to put all that together.

Photos : Valentin Le Cron

Translation : Jessica Jensen