leather goods inspired by the everyday life of Paris by Stephanie D'heygere
Imagine if u could accessorize, well... an accessory.' Cause who doesn't need a lighter in a dope leather belt? 👅
That's one of many things designer Stephanie D'heygere is doing. The mix between ordinary w/ extraordinary luxury makes her brand unique, bringing extra meaning for everyday materials, like leather and silver.
In D'heygere's world, everything can become ++++: like one pair of earings becoming countless pairs or a leather phone case which is obvsly the best part of ur whole look — 'cause u can (& must) create your own possibilities from one piece. Speaking of lthr, she is a big believer of its pwr to transmit culture & heritage.
Wanna bet? Keep on scroling to read the full chat we had with Stephanie:
What’s your background in jewelry design? Has it always been a passion or did you grow fond of it while growing up or joining the Royal Academy of Fine Arts,Antwerp, Belgium?
I studied Fashion Clothing Design at the Academy and went for internships on that field. Designing accessories wasn’t part of the plan, but I somehow ended up w/ it and literally fell in love. At first, I had no experience of that, so I did another internship and was very lucky to get one of them at Margiela in the accessories department. During my very long experience I got to see everything and designed from belts to bags and jewelries — if you go to a big house you have to choose only one. Internship there was life changing and immediately they offered me a job, and I ended up staying there for four years and a half.
U worked at other major fashion brands as well. How have they inspired you to be where you are now?
At every job and internship I learnt something different until I reached a point where I thought I was ready to launch my own brand. Besides my job at Margiela, I worked at Dior, did a lot of freelancing jobs as well (Jacquemus, Jil Sander,...) and still freelancing as a jewelry designer for Y Project for A.P.C. I took as much formation possible, mixed it and then launched my brand. I also teach at a school and usually say how important is to gain experience — I think it's impossible to launch a brand immediately after graduation. You need to know how the industry works, you need to go to factories, you have to travel. For example, when I worked at Margiela I learnt Italian by going to the factories. I am glad I waited to launch D'heygere.
U use a lot of ordinary materials and turn them into something really different, unique and special. How did you start using materials that we have contact every day and turning them into jewelry?
A lot of my inspiration comes from art. One of my favorite artists is Marcel Duchamp, who makes art with ordinary objects, called ready-mades and I thought it was so smart, so beautiful, so spontaneous.
"Most of the inspiration for my brand comes from my daily life in Paris. I’m not trying to sell a dream, something super beautiful, I’m actually not so interested in beauty as we know it. "
For example, we have earrings made of shoe horns, I don’t embellish things. My environment is comprised of streets and cities, so I’m not gonna shoot a campaign in a castle, because it’s so far away from who I am.
Your pieces bring a lot of provocative feelings, they're very innovative & inventive. Do you try to send a message w/ them?
I don’t think there’s a real message, I just think of different kinds of beauty and what I see as beauty is not what everybody thinks. I’m a fashion designer, so I just wanna make things that make people smile and make them happy. It took me some time, of course, to reflect on the identity of my brand, like when I postponed three times its launching 'cause it had to be clear and ready.
But once I launched it, people really understood the brand. Every season I need to bring new things in and cannot just do all the time the same thing, but I think I have an aesthetic I'm very happy 'bout it.
How did you go beyond the jewelry business to a full accessories brand, working with materials such as leather?
My brand is not only jewelry, because since I started working with accessories I’ve been designing different types of them. I took all my background and focused on more than jewelry, we now have jewelry, bags, small leather goods, plus some hats. After dealing w/ many factories, you need more materials, more pieces as well and that's fine because when you think of a definition of accessories it’s to accessorize the look.
Would u say your work has a sustainable way of production?
I think the sustainable approach that I have is more in a sense that you should consume a bit less. For example, we have all this jewelry that you can accessorize, so accessorize your accessory, meaning: you don’t need to buy. You buy one pair of earrings and with that one pair you can have different looks, like w/ a flower or a candle inside.
All the leathers we use are vegetable tanned, the jewelries are made out of silver, which I also consider sustainable. I don’t promote of my brand as sustainable, but we think about it, we're trying to make it as good as we can.
Besides art, does music influence your creative process? If the answer is yes, is there an album or artist that inspires you to create as well?
I love music and I listen to music all the time, but I don’t feel like it's an inspiration. When I am on my bike, when I walk or in the office there’s always music, I need it. But I am not gonna say ‘ok today I need to design, lets listen to this’, it has always been a part in my life, but it just doesn’t inspire me.
We didn't stalk you well enough to know why you have artsier references for the creation of your pieces. Can you guide us through this process of research to make your accessories unique, instead of just looking to fashion to create fashion?
I realize nowadays I rarely go to fashion shows, I don’t buy so many magazines. Of course it’s good to know what is going on 'cause you don’t wanna do the same as other people are already doing, but I don’t get inspiration from the fashion world. I love to go to exhibitions, to galleries or buying books, especially art books.
You use raw materials, like leather, for reinterpreting everyday pieces and turn ‘em into dope designs. Why do you work with this kind of materials?
I love leather because I think it does something with accessories, there’s also a culture of transmission and heritage. For example, I would get jewelry from my grandmother or one of her leather bags. Leather bags age well, sometimes they even get nicer. That doesn't happen with a plastic bag.
I don’t think I have a strong love for materials, it’s a bit the same with design. & it also comes a little bit from art. The idea or the concept of the jewelry, it’s almost more important than the material or the final result. It’s dangerous what I am saying but I would never present an accessory with no concept behind it because I wouldn’t be able to design it firstly. Materials and shapes come at the end, so when I go to a leather fair I need the design ready to choose what I'm gonna use.
In fashion, specially, we see a lot of people going after materials first and loving it, you know, falling in love with the material, with a fabric. So it wasn't like that for u?
I don’t work like this and I guess I could already sense it when I was in fashion school. I wasn’t very good at designing garments, I didn’t have this kind of vision about building something around the body. It would be the same with fabric because in fashion design it’s important to pick the right fabric always. I think that’s why I also love accessories, you don’t have to think about the body, anything can be an accessory, so I see them more as objects.
1 thing is for sure: objects like that make any day be 💯.