Text by Lindsay Wolf*

Inspired by the arm candy that Spartacus sported back in the day, the leather cuff is making a sexy, sophisticated comeback thanks to Owen & Savary, an independent leather accessories brand based in Paris and London.

Painters with a passion for perfect accessories, Kira Owen and Valerie Savary started the company together back in late 2008. “We’re both very much inspired by our travels,” says Owen. “We love to discover new lands, new customs, new people.” This may explain the designers love for exotic animal skins, but why the cuff?

A classic accessory for centuries, the challenge was to create an original, versatile design that leaps off the wrist while blending in with any wardrobe.

“The cuff has been around since the age of gladiators,” Owen explains. With their adjustable clasps, luxurious materials, trademark royal blue linings and artisanal fabrication, Owen and Savary have succeeded in giving the simple strap a thoroughly modern makeover.

Designed to spruce up your jeans by day while adding a kick to your evening attire, they blend with just about anything. Whether you’re wearing the classic Julia (narrower), the Salome (wider), or the Maximilien (for men), the cuff gently molds to your wrist without feeling restrictive thanks to its impeccable design and artisanal fabrication.

Each cuff is made in an atelier in Besançon where leather craftsmen build each piece to order out of an unusual range of colorful exotic skins, from metallic copper lambskin and camel ostrich to midnight blue stingray

The cuff’s genius lies in the clasp’s adjustability. Outfitted with a magnetic center, it’s a cinch to slip on and off. The original design is made from a laser machine to create the sharply cut look of the edges. While this process is more expensive than using a mold, the self-proclaimed perfectionists wouldn’t have it any other way.

In addition to their ready-to-wear collection that can be found at JNSQ and Galerie Kara in Paris, you can order a bespoke cuff by contacting the designers directly through their site. From there, they will work with you to configure the perfect piece to suit your style. The moment the order is submitted, it takes about 3 weeks to produce and receive your cuff.

What’s on the cusp of the cuff? Owen and Savary are busy working on a small series of handbags, chokers, ankle cuffs, key chains and watches.

Prices: 200-1200EUR, depending on choice of material.

Guest writer Lindsay Wolf divides her time between NYC and Paris. For commissions, feel free to contact her at lindsayawolf@gmail.com

Quickened pulse, dilated eyes, a desperate desire to touch and try. The setting was cold and depressing but it happened nonetheless—I fell head over heels in love.

Wandering among Who’s Next, the stadium-sized fashion and accessories fair this week in Paris, my heart gave out in front of the colorful panoply of Swedish Hasbeens clogs. These were the shoes of my childhood fantasies brought (back) to life. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the pair of sky-high lipstick red peep toe clogs on display were torn off of Olivia Newton John’s feet during the dance finale of Grease!

Based on a treasure trove of clogs found in the basement of an old Swedish factory, Swedish Hasbeens pick up where the 70s left off. In addition to the classic clogs and t-strap sandles are modern models like belted ankle boots, lovely lace-ups, sexy knee-highs, and sophisticated loafers available in a kaleidoscopic range of colors.

Handmade in Sweden, the chunky-heeled footware is made from sustainably-sourced wood and naturally-dyed grain leather to leave as small of a carbon print as possible. Gotta love those Swedes!

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Prices: $200-400
Availability: Click here to shop online, or here for an international shoplist.

Photos by Fabrice Fortin and Nicholas Calcott for Paris By Appointment Only™

It’s funny how a deep childhood frustration can become a creative manifesto later in life. Case in point: Maïa, the Paris-based porcelain painter. As a kid, she tried every night to decorate the table with her family’s finest, only to be told to return it to the cupboard for the everyday stuff.

Now, not only does Maïa set the table with beautiful, eye-popping designs whenever she likes, she’s made it her business to make sure that others do too!

“It’s a democratic way of bringing art into the home and a touch of fantasy to the table,” says the first-name-only artist who found a way to bridge the dishware divide between fabulous and functional by fusing the two in one.

Maïa started ten years ago with a teacup, and now hand paints everything from jars and dishes to bowls, vases and tea sets on porcelain made by one of the last remaining artisanal factories in Limoges, France.

Each made-to-measure creation is the result of a two-hour coffee klatch between artist and customer. “I need muses to create, and my clients are my muses,” says Maïa who meets her word-of-mouth clientele at her beautiful, porcelain-packed flat to find out about their preferred shapes, colors, pastimes, and even vacation destinations before crafting an original design

She not only creates entire services, but one-off compliments to your heirloom China as well. So if you have a vintage series that needs a modern centerpiece or an antique set that’s missing a few pieces, she can match everything from Puiforcat to Fornasetti.

Once you’ve agreed on your color, shape and motif, Maia then makes a sample free of charge (with no obligation to buy). If you give the okay, she returns to her atelier to seal colors in place in an 1200° C oven, then numbers and signs the designs with a fingerprint.

In addition to painting porcelain, Maïa is also a classical pianist (she’s giving a free, private concert on Nov 15 in Paris, and you’re invited to come, by the way). Unlike her musical performances, which are beautiful, but fleeting, porcelain allows Maïa to express her creativity in a much more tangible way.

It’s not hard to spot a melody in her artwork as well.  Inspired by the paintings of Vuillard, Miró and Chagall, Maia uses colors and shapes to create a timeless visual rhythm. Expressive yet classical, fluid yet structured, it’s all about complementing contrasts for Maïa, be it on piano or porcelain.

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Prices: Vases (60-300€), Tea Sets (75-120€), Plates (18-50€), Candy Dishes (98€)
Contact: maiaworlds@gmail.com or tel: + 33 6 60 70 18 18
Shop: A selection of Maïa’s designs can be found at Galeries Lafayette Maison (Paris) and Nest Interiors (New York)

Over the last ten years hundreds of French fashion artisans have been given the ax at venerable houses by number crunching executives sending production overseas. But one man’s trash is another man’s treasure…especially when centuries-old savoir-faire is heaped high in the bin!

Taking advantage of luxury industry’s shortsighted greed and indifference towards its own heritage, Chavernet, a new Paris-based couture house, is putting Paris’ forgotten couturiers back to work.

While only two-years-old, Chavernet has already carved a visionary niche in the word of high-end fashion. Promising a modern take on old-style craftsmanship at remarkably tame prices, the brand is the clever brainchild of two Parisian entrepreneurs, Maxime Liebens and Armen Der Agopian

“Most luxury brands adhere to the ‘Made in France’ mystique, but the truth is that the majority of their clothing is constructed overseas,” explains Liebens, who named the brand after his great-grandmother, Louise Chavernet, one of the first women to own her own fashion atelier in Paris.

“We wanted to go back to the source of couture and produce dresses in Paris using the best materials and savoir-faire.”

What Chavernet offers its word-of-mouth, international clientele is as crazy as it is chic. In less than a week (aka the average length of their client’s trip to Paris) they will design, produce and deliver an original couture cocktail dress to your Paris abode.

Their signature LSDs (little silk dresses) are all made by hand in Paris by a team of expert dressmakers (a 92-yr-old insider pointed them to the city’s best) using end-of-season couture fabric sourced throughout Paris.

“There are a lot of clients who are fed up with the whole circus of shopping in a giant fashion flagship and who just simply want a beautifully handcrafted original dress.”

Chavernet’s “One Woman = One Dress” motto caters to a very real desire to own something stellar that no one else but you will ever be caught wearing. Less obvious, but nonetheless priceless, is the exhilarating experience of buying the dress, which goes something like this:

Step 1: Come to Paris, but before you do, make an appointment with Chavernet.
Step 2: Think about the dress of your dreams and collect visuals to help you describe it.
Step 3: Meet with the Chavernet commercial director, designer as well as the couturier assigned to make your dress. At the end of your meeting your measurements will have been taken and a rough sketch made of your dress.
Step 4: Receive a definitive sketch with material samples the next morning at your hotel.
Step 5: Once you have approved sketch and materials, a muslin prototype is produced and sent over for fitting.
Step 6: A second prototype is produced in your chosen fabric and sent over with a couturier for the final fitting.
Step 7: Once you give the okay, the dress is made and delivered to your hotel.
Step 8: Traipse around Paris in your fabulous, new, custom-made frock.

Just a word of advice: if you plan on fitting into your dress by the time it’s delivered, you might want to lay off the macarons.

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Price: 1000E-1500E, depending on complexity of design and choice of fabric and finishes.
Further reading: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (by Dana Thomas); Chère Haute Couture (by Janie Samet); Luxury Considered (report by Ledbury Research); Agenda Inc.

The man who recreated Marie Antoinette’s favorite fragrance opens his first shop in Paris this month. You can go there to pick up off-beat gems like fragrant bubbles and paper, or, better yet, make an appointment to have this prince of perfume design your signature scent.

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While on a red eye flight home to Paris in 2001, the young, talented French perfumer Francis Kurkdjian was enjoying small talk with the woman beside him about their respective lines of work. It was a lovely tête-à-tête, full of funny coincidences and friends in common, but the conversation, however casual, was about to change his life!

Having already designed top-selling fragrances for big name brands (Le Mâle for Jean Paul Gaultier; Miracle Homme for Lancôme; Green Tea for Elizabeth Arden) and won prestigious industry prizes (the Francois Coty Perfumer Award in 2001, at the ripe age of 32!) Kurkdjian was itching for an exciting new career twist.

His words didn’t fall on deaf ears. By the time we walked off the plane he had his most thrilling order yet: a private commission to design a made-to-measure scent for his well-heeled neighbor, Terry de Gunzburg, founder of the luxurious beauty brand by Terry and former creative director of YSL Beauté. (Note to self: Start talking to people on planes.)

De Gunzburg naturally fell head over heals for the one-of-a-kind Fleur d’Oranger that Kurkdjian crafted specifically for her, and before he knew it le tout Paris was buzzing about his original olfactory works of art.  It didn’t take long before overseas beauties sniffed him out and he was back on those red eyes following his clients around the globe with his “labomobile,” a Pinel et Pinel custom steamer truck filled with over 200 scent samples.

“For me, it’s all about the de-dramatization of luxury and finding that perfect balance between tradition and modernity,” says Kurkdjian, while playing with the compartments of his nifty nomad lab.

Before each appointment he fills his magic box with a new range of raw materials to best suit his client’s taste. After the meeting (akin to a therapy session with perfumed memory triggers) Kurkdjian spends the next three months tweaking his formula, sending samples back and forth until he gets two thumbs up. From there, the juice is bottled in two gorgeous hand-engraved dark green glass flacons, packed into handmade Italian fabric boxes and shipped off to the lucky client. The secret formula is stored away for future flacons, never to be shared with anyone else.

“My style is about having no style. Other fragrance houses tailor their creations, even the customized scents, to fit their brand’s identity. I don’t have those limitations.”

So, just how far can he go? “It’s just a question of time and budget,” says the wild child of perfume, who in addition to bespoke fragrance also does on-site olfactory installations like perfumed fountains (at the Château de Versailles, no less) and edible collaborations with pastry chefs such as Christophe Michalak of the Plaza Athénée.

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Call or email well in advance to schedule an appointment:
E-mail: surmesure@franciskurkdjian.com
Phone: + 33 (0)1 42 77 40 22
Price: €8,000 and up for made-to-measure; €2,500-5,000 for demi-couture (an adaptation of an existing scent)
Boutique: 5 rue d’Alger 75001 Paris

All images by Nicholas Calcott for Paris By Appointment Only™

Over the last few years there’s been an influx of American chefs in Paris. Fusing American-style entrepreneurialism and experimentation with France’s gastronomic history, they have carved out a cross-cultural niche in Paris’ contemporary dining scene.

Two pioneers in this delicious movement are American chefs Braden and Laura. In 2007, the couple moved from Seattle to Paris to set up Hidden Kitchen, an underground, word-of-mouth, dining destination located in their Parisian flat. Modeled after the elaborate dinner parties that Braden and Laura would hold back home, HK is a sophisticated supper club where food-loving strangers come to meet and eat.

So how does it work?

Twice a week, Braden and Laura host elaborate, market inspired, ten-course meals with wine pairing for 16 diners at their swanky, super central Parisian pad (their address remains “hidden” until your reservation is confirmed via e-mail). The adorable couple greets guests with a refreshing aperitif before leading them to the communal table to meet the evening’s eclectic company, which include gourmet globetrotters, visiting friends and American expats to yes, a smattering of French!

At Hidden Kitchen, the fabulous food is the gastronomic glue that binds the diverse crowd.

At the beginning of each exciting course, Braden steals away from his tiny kitchen to explain the inner workings of his Franco-American fusion fare, fielding questions about the perfectly formed poached eggs (heat-resistant plastic wrap) and the French translation for sunchokes (topinambours) to the contents of his addictive white salad (fennel, endive, celery, cucumber, white truffle, lemon and parmesan). Meanwhile, Laura moves around the table to fill glasses and give the inside scoop on each accompanying wine.

Despite the complexity and elegance of the 5-hour meal, the atmosphere and energy at the table is amazingly relaxed. Mid-way through dinner you’ve forgotten that your tablemates began the evening as absolute strangers. By dessert, you’re exchanging phone numbers and emails. By the time you go to pay, you wish someone would plan a follow-up party to keep the spirit alive.  One night, one guest was so charmed by the evening’s company he insisted on picking up the tab for the entire table.

“Complete strangers who have met at our table have decided to go have drinks together the following night,” says Braden.

But the true champions of this cuisine-led community are the hosts themselves. “Almost everyone that we know in Paris has come from Hidden Kitchen,” says Braden, who in between HK events holds more casual, comfort food dinner parties of pea soup with dill dumplings and handmade pizza with home cured meats, ricotta and pickled cherry peppers for his and Laura’s group of friends.

Unfortunately, those events are by invitation, not reservation, only.

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Suggested Donation: 80€/person, not including gratuities

These days, you don’t have to be an heir to the throne to justify having your portrait done, nor do you don’t need a royal inheritance to pay for one. Why? Because more and more contemporary artists are loosening up classical portraiture, divesting the genre of its stuffy elitism and stratospheric prices.

That’s why I plan on having my face stitched on fabric.

Call me crazy, but when I find the funds to immortalize my mug, I’m going the way of the needle— and I know who’s going to do the stitching!

For years I’ve admired the work of French artist Justin Morin. Using embroidery as his main medium, Morin makes art out of different types of threads. From chunky macramé sculptures and hand-embroidered stickers to Birkin bags stitched in silk on cotton fabric, he gives a conceptual dimension to handicrafts by modernizing their subjects and settings.

“It all started with the notion of the link; how relationships between people are created, how they cross one another, come together and come apart. The vocabulary used to explain these ideas resonated for me visually in thread,” says the 29-yr-old artist.

Ignoring his professors’ protests, Morin taught himself how to embroider while studying at the Beaux Art in Metz. Shedding embroidery’s image as an outdated minor craft, he’s refreshed its status by giving it a chic, contemporary context in which to thrive.

Since moving to Paris in 2003, Morin has pioneered a new portrait style that’s best described as experimental realism with a tactile twist. Combining digital photography with state-of-the-art textile design, Morin uses needles, thread and a kaleidoscopic range of color to freeze faces in time.  A crafty confluence of fast and slow techniques give his canvases a super sleek, handmade feel, one that begins with a photography session in Morin’s apartment and ends in an atelier in Belgium with a 12-needle industrial sewing machine.

What makes embroidered canvasses so special is the behavior of the thread. The same thread stitched in one direction will change color when stitched in another because it catches the light differently.

For example, Morin’s all-white portrait prototype looks metallic, off-white, gray and creamy at times, but the colors are just an illusion: the entire portrait is made out of the same exact white thread.

Even though the canvases are in 2-D, the fluctuations of light on the surface of the thread create a hologram effect that makes the embroidery just jump off the canvas. You can’t get that with painting and drawings. So if you’re like me and love the notion of one-of-a-kind portraits that pop, Morin is the man to stitch your mug.

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Prices: 1500€ for still lives, 2200€ for portraits
Approx canvas size: 50×60cm
Contact: send me an email to be put in touch with Justin

If in Paris be sure to check out this group show curated by Justin Morin:

“Scales of the universe, the definition of the frontier”
Featuring work by: Claire Decet, Samuel François, Corentin Grossmann, Justin Morin, Sandra Przyczynski and Markus Zimmermann

Galerie Jeanroch Dard, 13 rue des arquebusiers, 75003 Paris
June 27th through July 31st, 2009.
Opening party: June 27th from 18h – 21h

A 21st century super hero of sartorial sensuality, artisan lingerie designer Louise Feuillère empowers women by building their bras, not burning them. Since she opened her adorable atelier-boutique on the aptly named “rue des Dames” in 2004, 35-yr-old Feuillère has been perking up the private lives of her privileged patrons with her couture and made-to-measure lingerie.

From superfine cotton panties with delicate lace trimming to sexy waist cinchers with velvet-covered ribbing, Feuillère’s confections are masterpieces of sensuality, technique, comfort and form.

“Lingerie sets the mood for the day,” says Feuillère, a sprightly, petite brunette with a mischievous smile and large coy eyes. “It’s the first decision you make when it comes to dressing. When you think of its impact on our daily disposition it takes on a dimension of well-being.” (Hear that ladies? Forget meditation, buy made-to-measure!!)

One of only a handful of designers to practice the fine art of handmade lingerie, Feuillère won the Meilleur Ouvrier de France title for lingerie-corsetry  (Best Craftsman of France) in 2007.  It took two months of quasi-monastic concentration to prepare the demanding MOF competition design (a 50s-inspired, 9-panel flounced “guepière” with lace-covered garters, two integrated mousse cups, a rigid breastplate and inlaid lace). The first time in over 30 years that a MOF was awarded to a designer for corsetry, her win was an amazing feat, especially for someone so new to the scene.

Despite her young age, Feuillère is custom fit for her role as the fresh face of luxury lingerie. Her credentials?

• Handmade heritage (grandma was a crochet-addict and grandpa an artisan-cobbler)
• A rich imagination and peculiar fascination for intimate spaces and their accoutrements (she says her apartment is one big bedroom)
• An amazing eye for line, texture, color and composition (she studied Art History before earning a degree in fashion design)
• Insider expertise gleamed from the best (her personal coach and guru, Christianne Mogenet, is the oldest corset maker in Paris)
• A “St. Bernard” instinct towards reviving sensuality (the right lingerie can be just what the doctor ordered!)

“Seduction is all about feeling beautiful and comfortable with your body. Lingerie is simply a jewel that adorns that natural beauty,” says Feuillère, whose fresh, seductive designs strike a perfect chord between simplicity and embellishment.

Feuillère’s encyclopedic range of intimates includes everything from panties, garters, camisoles and bras to corsets, nightgowns, slips and bathing suits. To achieve the sensation of second-skin comfort, each creation is hand cut and assembled using the finest materials. Feuillère prefers tightly-woven Italian shirt cotton to the typical mesh netting for her corsets and bloomers, lace fabricated in France, and delicate embroidery from Spain. As passionate about ecology as she is corsetry, Feuillère is busy working on an all-organic cotton and bamboo capsule collection in unadorned shades of nude.

Each design can be customized according to fit, fabric and color preference. But for a truly original wearable work of art, indulge in one of her made-to-measure masterpieces. The custom collaboration takes several fittings and weeks to complete, so be sure to plan in advance.

Price range: couture (220-420E); made-to-measure (1500-3000E)

It’s only my fourth post but I already have a confession to make (and no, it’s not about the cutie above).

One of the reasons why I’m doing this project is to satisfy my longstanding curiosity for people who pursue unusual professional paths. I have never been blessed (or cursed, perhaps?) with a burning career calling, but I am fascinated with those who are—especially when their shtick is super obscure.

Working as a journalist has served me well in this department. Interviewing someone is like having a giant question pass printed on your forehead. From challenging and quirky to just plain personal, you can ask your subject just about anything.

For me, the ultimate “jackpot conversation” is when I walk out of the experience with a juicy slice into someone’s life and a completely new window into the world.

That’s how I felt after my visit to Avenel L, a year-old workshop and design firm dedicated to the art of woodworking.

It wasn’t because the space was ravishing (see above!) or packed floor-to-ceiling with gorgeous handcrafted furniture, but because after two hours speaking with the boys behind the studio I realized that I had unearthed something much larger and exciting than I had expected.

Without sounding overly dramatic, Avenel L reassured me that France (which has been suffering from a bad case of mild depression for at least a decade) was on some kind of self-healing path via its kids.

Picking up, dusting off and reviving some of France’s vanishing crafts, young artisan-designers are propelling the country’s weighty handmade ”heritage” into the 21st century with beauty and bravado.

What’s interesting about this new creative wave is that it’s not simply about preserving aging skills, but using them to anticipate the aesthetic tastes of tomorrow.

Avenel L is in many ways the most striking example of this movement that I’ve yet to see. It should come as no surprise, really. The founder of this fresh-faced trio is the award-winning “ebeniste’” (cabinetmaker) Ludovic Avenel. In 2007, at the ripe old age of 23, Avenel won the outrageously prestigious Liliane Bettancourt pour l’Intelligence de la Main, an award given each year to a French artisan in a specific field.

His masterpiece Empreinte (Imprint)—a duo of virtually-identical art deco commodes created using two sets of materials, one modest (cardboard & aluminum) and one luxurious (mahogany & shagreen)—showed off his sleight of hand savvy and technical dexterity.  It also helped him score the 50,000E cash award to jump-start his own company.

Avenel didn’t need to look far for qualified designer-craftsmen to join his team. All he had to do was recruit two of his friends from his Alma mater, the Ecole Boulle, France’s Harvard of artistic crafts. Like Avenel (now 25-yrs-old), Christophe Bret (23) and Steven Leprizé (22) had also been afflicted by the rare-for-France entrepreneurial bug.

Had all the dust in the studio clouded their minds or was something shifting here in France?

“There’s something changing in the world of artistic crafts, especially for designers our age,” says Bret, who looks like he should be playing Game Boy rather than giving an insightful analysis into his cohort’s professional ambitions. “If you look back only ten years ago, most of the graduates from Ecole Bulle went into restoration right after school. The emphasis was on technique, not original form. A new generation is looking for ways to merge the artisan with the artistic,” adds Leprizé, who has coined the term objects functionnels artistiques (functional artistic objects) to describe their work.

Wood is at the heart of the Avenel L design philosophy. Everything—from custom-crafted commodes overlaid with fragile shagreen (160,000E), to embossed leather  jewelry boxes (4,000E)—begins with the sturdy stuff. It’s what warms the designs and grounds their daring, sculptural shapes in the real.

Bound by a common commitment to innovation and quality, what sets Avenel L apart from most other design studios is their ability to handle every facet of conceptualization and fabrication.

That kind of A-to-Z expertise doesn’t come cheap, nor is it achieved overnight, so you won’t be hobbling out of the studio with a cabinet on your back. Make an appointment, speak to the kids, tell them what you like, they’ll design it, built it, and send it your way. An original work of furniture art made by baby-faced craftsmen who are helping to heal the French psyche? Try topping that!