Scrolling through hundreds of watercolour plates, scouring the Musée de la Céramique in Desvres, the Manufacture de Sèvres, the Château de Versailles and the flea markets of the Côte d'Opale - that's how the research into the sets began. Before I found the pearl.
I started this work with my sister Aurélie (I love you), who is very talented at drawing and to whom I am very close. We observed, sorted and began to interpret the plates. It's a job that could never be finished because the collections are so rich and complex. Aurélie had started drawing. The warm, flowery motifs were already very appealing. But I stumbled over the technique and the process. I had to take a break, move on to other subjects and then come back. I simply had to understand how to go from the idea of a décor to a finished piece. But watch out, a capsule collection from the two sisters could be coming soon!
At the same time, I had to quickly launch the creation of the brand, its identity and its message. I had a feeling that the brand and the decor were very closely linked. In other words, what I wanted to express through my shapes, my designs and my brand were really one and the same thing.
So I contacted Kevin Lhuissier and asked him to help me with the entire artistic direction of the project. It was a very important part of the project for me, and I needed help with everything from creating the logo to the technical specifications for the sets.
Kevin is one of the most brilliant people I've met through this project. I don't regret calling on him for a second (thank you Rémy BARDIN), he was THE person.I'll be doing an article about the brand and Kevin soon, but let's get back to the sets.
One of the first difficulties we encountered with Desvres earthenware is that there is virtually no scientific reference work.You can contact collectors and in particular specialists in these particular pieces (I'd like to thank them in passing) but no historian has really looked at Desvres until now.So what can you do?Quite simply, turn to the institution that knows the most about all these questions: the local museum.
The Musée de la Céramique de Desvres was immediately a great help to us. We were welcomed with kindness and generosity, especially by its director Sarah Vallin and, of course, her entire team.
Our ambition with the decors was to be part of a 200-year-old tradition, based on the incredible expertise of the Desvres craftsmen, but we also wanted to keep it going by making our own contribution for the future, with our own unique and identifiable personality.
The objective was clear, but the dizziness was immense: we felt a great responsibility to rework these magnificent sets. I think Kevin tested dozens of media and types of brush/stylus/ink, to come up with a result that was satisfying enough for him and, above all, for his high standards in terms of the subject. He always took radical but justified positions, and made choices that were ultra-demanding but always feasible in practice.
From the outset, Kevin also wanted to have a graphic logic for the whole collection. Never taking the easy way out when adapting to different formats, always focusing on the initial ambition. His knowledge and many references in graphic design and art history also helped us a great deal to stay on course.
Yes, there was pressure, but there was also the desire to have fun. We had some incredible moments coming out of the kiln, sharing tracings and going through the archives.I particularly remember our discovery one morning, during one of our first meetings, of an archive that changed everything.It was the 1910 vase-bouteille, Rouen with the Horn of Plenty.It was simply mesmerising and sublime. It became obvious that this was the one we wanted to start with.