In style, to be as effortlessly stylish because the French is a typical pursuit. Onlookers can purchase all the proper issues, minimize their hair in all the proper locations, misery their denims and smudge their lipstick and tousle their shirt in all the proper methods, and nonetheless not have “it” — “it,” on this case, being a sure je ne sais quoi that lies in subtleties. It is why covert clothes and equipment which will cruise beneath the radar elsewhere are so instrumental to the Parisian fantasy: Those that know know, and people who do not, nicely… We weren’t so involved about them anyway, now had been we?
That is the thought course of behind Polène, a quintessentially Parisian leather-goods model based by three siblings in 2016. Launching with a spread of purses, Polène has steadily gained international recognition for its sturdy, easy designs insiders could acknowledge on the shoulder of some Jeanne Damas-type. As is customary throughout the French-girl fable, you will not discover splashy logos or flashy {hardware} right here. The label goals to be “discreet,” as a substitute letting its work converse for itself with pristine supplies and a sublime savoir-faire. Costs are nonetheless comparatively accessible, with most luggage within the $300-$450 vary.
“Our viewpoint, and likewise the entire thought of the corporate, is to construct one thing from the product, from the design, from the standard, from the story,” says co-founder Antoine Mothay, who himself ventures to maintain his personal background non-public in order to not distract from that of the model’s.
What Mothay does share about himself, nonetheless, is that he is the center baby, sandwiched between large brother Mathieu and little sister Elsa, all of whom created Polène collectively. Vogue is their household enterprise, in any case: Their great-grandfather launched the long-lasting French clothes line Saint James, purveyor of cult-favorite Breton-stripe shirts, method again in 1889. “Its merchandise are very prime quality, items you’ll be able to preserve for a lot of, a few years,” says Mothay. “I believe that gave us a style of what good merchandise must be.”
Nonetheless, Polène got here to be by blissful accident. Whereas Mothay recollects that he and his siblings had been all the time particularly inquisitive about leather-based items (what French individual is not?), it wasn’t till he discovered himself in an Hermès workshop in Madrid in 2014 that the proverbial lightbulb flicked on.
“I stood for 2 or three hours in entrance of an artisan making a bag and explaining all the small print about what it takes to have the proper bag,” he remembers.
This being peak Mansur Gavriel period, Mothay was concurrently excited by the brand new crop of digitally native, direct-to-consumer manufacturers rising out of the USA. So he and his siblings set to work to make one thing of their very own.
Their analysis and growth was intensive, with the leather-goods business in Europe — a lot of which remains to be family-run — being famously troublesome to interrupt into. Leatherworking has managed the economies of complete cities and cities all through Italy, Spain and Portugal for the reason that Center Ages, and producers aren’t so eager to open their doorways for any fledgling label that comes a-knocking. Mothay spent two months in jap Europe, three months in Portugal and an entire yr in Spain constructing out a sequence of programs and procedures step-by-step, from scratch.
The Polène Quantity One and Quantity 9.
Photograph: Courtesy of Polène
On the opposite aspect of these 18 months got here the Polène product line, a tidy vary of minimalist, monochromatic purses that toe the road between basic French luxurious and youthful depth. Mothay cites nature as a major inspiration by way of each rung of the method, from preliminary ideation to the distribution of the completed assortment. One purse, the “Tonca,” was actually influenced by the natural curvature of the common-or-garden tonka bean.
“What’s attention-grabbing about how we have tailored is that we by no means work with drawings,” says Mothay. “Drawings are so flat, however you’ll be able to see our luggage from all sides, and all sides have one thing to specific.” As an alternative, the design studio makes use of 3D microfiber prototypes that, not like a 2D drawing, may be simply manipulated to take the form of leather-based. “Whenever you see a Polène bag, it ought to have extra of a singular form than different luggage you have seen.”
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This, Mothay hopes, is as a lot because of the luggage’ microfiber drafting course of as it’s the supplies that full them. Polène makes use of full-grain calf leather-based that comes sourced from Italian and Spanish tanneries and licensed by the Leather-based Working Group (LWG), a world group that claims to supply extra sustainable and clear leather-based items.
Manufacturers awarded with LWG certification, like Polène, have undergone thorough auditing throughout areas like chemical air pollution and employee well being and security. Extra tanneries seem on the Environmental Safety Company’s Superfund record (that identifies the precedence environmental cleanups) than every other enterprise kind within the U.S. However this isn’t strictly an American drawback: Virtually all leather-based is tanned with identified carcinogens like chromium, formaldehyde and arsenic, which, in flip, exposes employees to larger charges of most cancers and different sicknesses.
Polène is aware of it isn’t sufficient to easily declare best-in-class supplies anymore. For the primary 4 years of the enterprise, Mothay’s brother Mathieu inspected every piece of leather-based, one after the other, earlier than it was moved into manufacturing.
“He did that as a result of high quality was so essential for him, to have a relationship with our companions and to allow them to perceive how we work and what we anticipate from them,” says Mothay. “This isn’t a leather-based yow will discover with different manufacturers.”
Inside Polène’s New York Metropolis flagship retailer, positioned at 487 Broadway in SoHo.
Photograph: Courtesy of Polène
Because it seems, Mothay and his siblings are equally as obsessive about steel {hardware}. Polène’s come gilded with a vacuum coating known as Bodily Vapor Deposition (or PVD) plating, a way used within the watchmaking business for its long-lasting high quality. It is also extra sustainable than the standard galvanization course of, in that it makes use of no water and no chemical substances — simply electrical energy — to bond gold with steel.
{Hardware} is high of thoughts for an upcoming class growth into jewellery, the specifics of which stay beneath wraps. “Jewellery is a brand new space for us to specific our aesthetic,” says Mothay. “Jewellery offers you extra prospects when it comes to design than purses or sneakers, the place you all the time have the issue of weight when it comes to dimension and supplies.” Talking of sneakers: That is coming, too, a growth that may delight the model’s coterie of loyal consumers who Mothay says have all however demanded Polène sneakers for years now.
“The technique is all the time to go step-by-step,” he says. “The corporate is rising actually quick, and we might develop even quicker, however we actually wish to construct up a up to date home of style.”
Mothay means “home” actually: In September, Polène opened its New York Metropolis flagship retailer (its first brick-and-mortar location within the U.S.) on a sunny, sprawling nook in SoHo. The sparse area, crammed with customized wooden seating and uncluttered shelving, brings consumers deep into the recesses of the Polène mind waves. Quickly, the model continues its worldwide tour to broaden its retail footprint to Tokyo, with a brand new location set to open within the spring.
Proper now, Japan is amongst Polène’s 4 largest markets, alongside the U.S., China and, in fact, France. As a result of as a lot as Polène is Parisian magnificence in a figurative bottle, it additionally understands the aesthetic’s international attraction, working with an ample group of influencers who showcase Polène’s merchandise throughout social media the world over.
That is how I realized of the model, in any case: on the web page of a distinct segment TikTok creator who paired her half-moon-shaped Numéro Dix with slouchy denims and Birkenstock’s Tremendous-Birkis. The bag, although, is what pulled all of it collectively. Or possibly that is simply the Parisian fantasy speaking.
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