n°74 was born from the love of things made by hand – knitted, crocheted, embroidered, woven – and from the wish to imagine children’s bedrooms that are beautiful and tender, a space inviting them to dream.

As time passed, this passion that animated us from the very beginning has remained the same while our activities progressed towards being more in touch with the substance and essence of our soul.

The concept of “Made By You” that we are introducing now has emerged from this path. The wish to share creativity is its reason for being.

A few months ago, I decided to come back to the essence of what we were doing. So I started to work on a “Small Editions” product line, items essentially made in small quantities using artisanal techniques mastered by only a few women in Thailand.

Some of these products were actually part of our catalogue at the very beginning. However, we resigned ourselves to stopping them as we could not honour overwhelming demand.

I then started to imagine a range of “School posters”. Remember the ones that used to be displayed on our classroom walls?! Each one

would gather up a family of things, such as fruit, animals, vegetables... all those existential things that we learnt as kids.

I had been dreaming about them for a long, long time... All I needed was to come up with the way our n°74 school posters would be. I could see them embroidered by hand on our organic canvas. I could see them hanging on wrought iron bars.

Voilà! It had begun! “Made By You” was not born yet, but soon...

I would draw animals and watch our artisan women embroider the first prototypes. I was in complete amazement, just like a little girl watching a fish or a dragonfly coming to life before her eyes.

A thought suddenly came to me: “Why not me? Why not us?”

Here I go with a cotton pouch under my arm, a small one to allow me to take it everywhere I go – on the plane, in a queue, on a bed, a sofa, in nature –

with everything I needed inside: a canvas with a pre-drawn pattern, thin embroidery threads in our colours, a mini embroidery hoop and needles.

That’s how it started! I took the plunge, a little shy at first but daring to believe: “What if I could do it too?”

I decided to learn one embroidery stitch, only one, and that was all! That stitch surprised me and I liked it. It was the stem stitch.

Once finished, the stem stitch looked a lot more difficult than it actually was to do. A few trials later, the result was astonishing.

I then understood that I was able to do it and that my creation will be beautiful.

It would certainly be different from the canvas embroidered by our professional artisans.

However, it will be beautiful, very beautiful even, because it will be mine, because the moments spent making it will be anchored in me.

In my mind, this experience becomes an encounter between my heart and my hands. I discover another possibility to develop my creativity. I feed my being, I find myself again and I recharge.

"However, it will be beautiful, very beautiful even, because it will be mine, because the moments spent making it will be anchored in me."

I am sharing with you this enriching moment of my life because it made me less shy. I imagine you as the messengers of an experience that would say: “We are able”.

We are so much in need to hear it and know it!

Until then, I only knew knitting, sewing and crochet. Since then, I have tried macramé and weaving.

I most certainly will not become an expert. However, I feel enriched by all these potentialities that are imprinted in me. I feel empowered to be able, whenever and wherever I wish, to connect to my essence through matter.

Shop the look here