“Clothing is very linked to the skin, to the body, to intimacy”: Déborah Sitbon Neuberg, founder of De Bonne Facture – Déclic #6

I can try to explain to you my whole philosophy on why I will rather go and get my materials nearby . By engaging a little more politically on subjects linked to feminism, anti-racism, and therefore inevitably colonialism, I realized that there were many themes to explore: social working conditions, relocations or else themes linked to agriculture, plantations, intensive crops, all this in colonies made to bring goods and merchandise back to the West. There are similar things in clothing but we don't talk about them .

Merino farms in Australia, for example, are intensive farms in a country that was colonized. These are large spaces, which make very large capacity breeding possible and which are in fact completely industrial. There are diseases that develop because of this and the climate and therefore as a result of the violence that is committed against animals, to be able to have the most industrializable wools possible or without defects.

There is something completely wrong . When I discovered this practice of animal cruelty on Australian merinos, I no longer wanted to work with these wools. I work a little now with merino wools from Arles for example, more rustic, or with wools from New Zealand on extra-fine merinos. There isn't this practice of animal cruelty, which is called mulesing and it's much gentler.

If we take the thread and fibers of the sheep through the generations of breeding, everything is done so that it is finer and finer. We had that in France before. But we lost this refined side because the entire sector disappeared: everything was outsourced, we looked for less money and we raised sheep more for food than for clothing .

If we want to create this type of product, we have to go to suppliers who work with these sheep. We try to find those who do not practice cruelty. Afterwards , my thing is to find wools which are being rehabilitated or which have been a little discarded, and to rework them .

THERE’S AN INDIANA JONES SIDE IN IT, CLOTHING ARCHAEOLOGIST

A little yes. There is also something linked to colonization. It is an ideology which invaded, stole, appropriated resources and people, but it is also an ideology which enormously unified the regions for the benefit of something more statist, with a standardized language, an identity.

It has greatly erased this relationship to the land, to the seasons, to popular cultures and spiritualities . In my job, I can't find this spirit on all levels, but I try to do something about it.

WAS IT ALREADY ABOUT MATERIAL IN YOUR FIRST MEMORIES OF CLOTHING?

No. Finally, if we talk about me, my clothes, I had dresses that I really liked when I was little but I imagine that it was more linked to my parents. In men's clothing, it was very linked to my father for example. It is very present in my inspirations but it is not first degree, literal . He didn't necessarily wear this type of clothing but there was something in the world of what he wore that inspired me.

For example the Scottish Wool, Old England style boutiques, all these somewhat classic and masculine boutiques which have completely disappeared today, except for a little at Albert Arts in Nice. It was the founder of Façonnable who set up this brand. It's still Old England there.

It's really something that has disappeared, this triple-thread Scottish cashmere sweater aspect, which lasts forever and where there's no real brand. My memories of beautiful clothes were more linked to this kind of imagination and touch, the unbranded side .

IN ADOLESCENCE, IT IS OFTEN ABOUT BRANDS. WAS IT NOT A LITTLE COMPLICATED?

Not at all in my college. It wasn't crazy at all! I was in a “private”, bilingual and hyper-international school. It was very bourgeois, a bit bohemian of the time too. Today, it's not really bobo, it's more "flashy" I think. But at the time, it was like the child of diplomats, the child of doctors, actors, etc.

In the 90s, you really shouldn't have brands . So it was super grunge, hippie... We bleached our t-shirts with bleach, we went to flea markets to buy things, Patina , a section where we show the patina of the clothes that our friends have could keep in the long term, I had contributed with my father's bomber jacket that I wore when I was 14, with my hippie style.

WHY DID YOU GO INTO FASHION?

I've always wanted to work in this industry, since I was 13-14 years old. I drew, I made silhouettes in my notebooks, I was very into fashion. My parents didn't let me go to fashion school because they didn't think it was a good career.

I was quite good in classes, so they saw that I could do somewhat prestigious courses and as they were very focused on academic excellence, especially my father, I ended up doing HEC, with the idea "you do that, and then you can do what you want.”

So I did all my internships and all my experiences in fashion , a little in cosmetics too because I didn't always find interesting things in fashion - I didn't really want to be a saleswoman at Dior and that's it. was the kind of internship there could be.

Then I almost went to fashion school but I was already 24 years old, HEC was ultra-expensive so I said to myself "I'm going to go back to prep, an art or fashion school and then I'm going to have 29 years old when I get out...". It was nonsense!

So I told myself that I was going to do the IFM*, that there would still be a fashion specialization and that then I would work in product, that we would see where that took me . This is how I joined Hermes after the IFM

EMBARKING ON SUCH AN ADVENTURE REQUIRES YOU TO GET A BIT OUT OF YOURSELF, RIGHT?

Completely. I have a friend who talks about a founding act. This is the moment when we rebel against something to lay down our stone . But De Bonne Facture is not just that.

There is a house side and also a living space side here . If only in the way we thought about the space with the boutique, the showroom, behind the offices, the design studio, the kitchen area. There is an oven, pans, you can make omelettes. It's not just an office and a shop.

DOES CLOTHING DEVOUR ALL YOUR TIME?

No, there is still room for other passions, other interests. It is not the clothing that devours but ultimately everything ends up nourishing the reflection, the project, the meetings . This is valid for any creative enterprise, as long as you are passionate, you step outside of yourself a little to create something. It takes up a lot of space even if there are other interests nearby.

On the other hand, I was taken to places and interests in which I did not see any connection with De Bonne Facture at all. Feminist activism, for example. Or my involvement in anti-racist movements or queer spaces in general.

Eventually, everything comes together . I didn't necessarily see that my different interests would somehow converge.

WHAT DO YOU ACCURATE MASCULINE STYLE?

I don't know if you've seen my personal Instagram profile, but my bio is "what is menswear?" I think there is absolutely no answer. What is it actually? I don't have a vision of what fashion should be, neither for men, nor for women , nor for any other gender: it can be whatever we want it to be.

Also our women's capsule was mainly born from the fact that I often wear De Bonne Facture. Some people said to me “I would really like you to make pieces for women” . It turns out that for my part I fit into the clothes I make, that they fit me, that I can zip them up and wear the shirts. But there are people who have more chest or slightly different hips.

The idea was to adapt a little bit, on a few pieces. I realize that on certain models, we can make things more unisex , that we can sometimes navigate and appropriate them around a particular style.

WHAT’S IN YOUR PERSONAL LOCKER ROOM?

Lots of good work! But there are also lots of other things. I have vintage, Outfit Dissecting . She dissects the styles of certain designers and vintage enthusiasts. She made my portrait on her blog. She also participated in our Patina section. She wore an LL Bean coat from her great-grandfather, in heavy checks - a frontier spirit type coat that is at least 80 years old. I loved !

We shop with Laure, who works for us on the style and development part. We often go to Saint-Ouen to hunt . We know quite a few flea markets and I found an LL Bean jacket with the same checks: it made me think of the coat mentioned above, I bought it and I'm wearing it at the moment.

SO THE STYLE IS ENOUGH SPONTANEOUS FOR YOU. BUT IN OTHERS...

Yes, there are people who ask too many questions . But we have lost the rules so much ... There is no longer this thing of rules, of how to dress well for this or that, uniforms, etc. It was completely lost. There was a whole wave to relearn codes but it sometimes turned into obsession and a vision that was perhaps a little too literal.

There are a lot of people from the world of blogs, menswear and forums who leave it at some point because they realize that we ultimately do what we want. It becomes a matter of personal taste, we make mistakes, we mix things we like .

It's like in music. There are those obsessed with purity, taste and other people who assume they like something super popular, something not particularly evolved or refined musically but which at the same time touches the heart. And why not ? I believe in that: freedom .

I LIKE THE PARALLEL OF MUSIC AND CLOTHES. BUT ULTIMATE PERFECTION DOES NOT SEE TO BE THE PRIMARY ELEMENT IN YOUR WORK.

It's a bit like the idea of ​​wabi-sabi in Japan, perfection in imperfection . Precisely these slightly rustic aspects but which are worked with very high quality finishes.

These are, for example, Japanese materials on shirts which reproduce vintage French fabrics from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, which we no longer find at all today, neither in France nor among the Italians. There we find a kind of granularity or roughness . At the same time, the craftsmanship of making the shirt is perfect. It's more in that spirit.

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN THE HISTORY OF CLOTHING? AN ARTICLE WAS RECENTLY PUBLISHED ON DANDYSM.

I know people who are great history specialists and I don't think I'm one of them, but I have some notions. For the rest, I know that in the original dandyism, there was a snobbery of the worn-out.

It's a bit like the cream pie thing that we repeat all the time with Brummel etc., but it was like "I'm very sophisticated but at the same time I have a bit of a nonchalant side so in fact I I'm better than you." There is a bit of that side. Decadent. "I'm so refined, I seem to do less but in fact it's more than you, who are so nouveau riche or not cultured that you take things at face value."

Somehow, what I say about freedom is also a form of snobbery. People who take fashion and style advice literally is also because they don't know and are afraid of making a mistake.

It's only when we know and have reached a certain level of culture that we take liberties, we play or... we don't care! There is a certain form of elitism in this posture. However, to make good use of this freedom, you must have a certain form of discipline.

WHAT IS YOUR RELATION TO THE TEXT?

I think I have a very strong relationship with the text and the words, but it's really out of personal taste . I'm happy that it's also present in the brand. There is a slightly poetic side to certain texts that we can transcribe or even the title of this short story "The Man Who Planted Trees" by Jean Giono. It's not necessarily thoughtful, just that I find it beautiful, that I want to tell these things .

Sometimes we send out a poem for the New Year, things like that, so people have something a little inspiring. But I think it's more a part of me. It is not necessarily thought out as a strategy.

“VISION”, “PHILOSOPHY”, THE WORDS ON THE SITE ARE NOT ANODINE.

Yes. Before the editorial part was called "library" but I don't think people understood what it was. Sometimes it might even go a little too far.

Initially, my working name was Editor. The idea was to seek out these workshops, these materials, to have timeless ones, to publish them season after season . That's why they're called editions and not collections.

In itself, it is a collection in the professional sense: we put on a collection, we present it, we take orders, etc. We have a fairly traditional way of working in fashion but then in the way of thinking...

There are certain professionals, buyers, department stores or people in the trade who talk, for example, about wardrobe brands, to talk about brands that have an offering that will not go out of fashion compared to fashion brands. Sometimes I said "here, look what I'm doing, I think you could distribute us" and I've already been told "no, we already have wardrobe brands".

A STORY OF CASES?

Yes that's it. That's fashion, that's not fashion. As for whether what I do falls into either category, I would say yes and no. It depends what we do with it.

The responsibility of the person who designs and the people who make it ends when the person who buys appropriates the garment , wears it, does what they want with it. Take for example someone who is very fashionable, who will have a De Bonne Facture piece: it will perhaps be fashionable on them and not on another person.

On the other hand, a very simple piece from a very fashionable brand can be worn by someone for 15 years, simply because they like it, take care of it and it holds up well. .. I have one or two H&M jeans that I bought when I was 20, I still have them in my closet.

Ultimately, it's not so fast fashion! That being said, even when working in a slow fashion way, everything also depends on the way people consume .

IN YOUR VIEW, IS THE GOING BUSINESS SUIT A GOOD THING?

It corresponds to a certain use. While it's moving away from the mainstream wardrobe, it's coming back to somewhat niche people who are dressing again with Armani suits, with shoulders, etc.

These are cycles, ping-pongs of references between what has passed and what is coming back , what is sharp but which comes from before. There was a return to the "tailor" suit 10 or more years ago. Afterwards, it became a little ridiculous because “too much”.

Then there was the return to the 90s costume, in a slightly ironic mode. At the same time, it is much less of a code in the general population. There are very few places where it's still a code .

DO YOU CONNECT CLOTHING TO WELL-BEING?

Completely. For me, clothing has a cosmetic personality . We put creams on our skin and we have clothes on our skin all day long. We see cosmetic products as something very intimate but in fact clothes are just as intimate: they touch us all day long, they permeate our smell, our body, our experiences. For me it is very linked to the skin, to the body, to intimacy . In this sense, for me it is very close to cosmetics.

Afterwards, it's like when you eat a dish that was prepared with grandmother's good vegetables, it doesn't have the same taste. You feel better after tasting it than with a dish made with bad vegetables, which was made in “ready-made, bought in a supermarket” mode. We don't have the same feeling of satisfaction and well-being. I think it's the same for clothing .

Do you know Vandana Shiva? She is an Indian eco-feminist, basically a doctor of physics. She has focused a lot on topics related to eco-feminism. Many women are in the fields harvesting cotton.

There are stories of working conditions, of the way in which we treat the land. I achieved all of this by connecting all of my personal commitments together . However, they seemed very different from each other to me. It's funny that I got into men's fashion for exactly that: I kind of went to the heart of the reactor .

It's a bit of a cultural idea but in what is feminine, we find the nurturing, fertile, domestic principle, etc. That which guards, that which broods, that which breeds, that which nourishes, that which takes care of. Some companies or countries have gone to attack the land and other cultures. Companies like Monsanto for example, which use seeds which lose their quality, which we have to buy back to have a new harvest.

In peasant seeds, on the contrary, we can plant and re-harvest the seeds. It's not the same way of working the land, not the same cycles . There's a whole thing that goes with it. We can see this way of treating the earth and emptying it of its wealth in every sense of the word as a patriarchal principle, rather hierarchical, dominant, and not in an ecosystem.

In eco-feminism, we link ecological principles and care in general. This is why I connect clothing and cosmetics and why I talk about skin and well-being . This notion of care is very present in feminism. It also goes with the land and crops.

Coming back to Vandana Shiva, she created permaculture farms in India so that there is a diversity of seeds, that we work with old seeds and not necessarily with those which are manufactured and which make farmers dependent on companies and force them to use pesticides. It's a vicious circle.

She tried to start from something that respects the land, women and gives them a means of subsistence . It’s that whole mindset. It's never nice to pull up a plant, kill an animal or mow. We are still in a relationship with the living in our profession . That is to say, we are making products with it. You must be aware.

There are quite a few resources available on the issue of seeds. I remove all the petrochemicals because I don't use any or almost none, but with most materials there is a lot of petrochemicals: polyester, polyamide, all of that is plastic and has very long cycles. to deteriorate, etc.

Choosing to use natural materials is already a step . Of course, there are other ecological questions behind it. It's not neutral. But here I am, wondering, particularly about the best practices to follow. I can't do it all. I know that there are certain materials that I source for which I could do better, and others that I want to develop or work on more.

In any case, all this forms a chain, something a bit Buddhist . Everything carries the history of all cycles: for example this is a tree but before being a tree it was a seed, and before being a seed it was on another tree, etc. It's alive !

That being said, I can't do everything I want. I mention ideas but I am far from perfect on everything I propose . There are times when I try to detach myself a little. It's a bit frustrating. But I also have to respond to a demand because there is a brand, there are things that work well, that people like, that they want to buy.

Sometimes we don't know how to do them in an ultra-responsible way, at least in my idea of ​​what I would like to do, or it no longer corresponds to the uses of clothing. It comes face to face with reality . We must live too. In short, it's a real question.

IF IT CAN LIGHTEN UP A LITTLE: THE GRANDAD COAT PUTS A LOT OF STARS IN THE EYES.

Yes. It sells very well even though it is super expensive. It's a luxury piece, we made it but it also happens to provide added value: there are people who invest in this coat. It actually comes from a customer's coat. I wonder if it wasn't a BonneGueule reader by the way?

He had come to a private sale. He said to me, “Here, I brought you my grandfather’s coat, I’ll exchange it for some of your coins.” So I tell him something like "You're crazy, don't give me that, keep it!" And he then said to me "no, I really want this shirt, etc. Keep it, I'm not wearing it, I'm not using it. It will be more useful to you. I'll exchange it for you!" I made the exchange.

The coat was magnificent . It was a tailor-made piece, with liners and super well-made stuff. We adapted it. We changed the fit but it was in the spirit of the coat of this reader, who I believe was a reader of BonneGueule.

DO YOU HAVE A LOT OF MEETINGS OF THIS TYPE, WHICH LEAD TO CREATIONS?

Yes, it can happen. But I can find interesting stuff or inspiration in everything . For example, Montagne Noire comes from the codes of tourist sweaters where it is marked “I love something” or “Chambéry”. It ends up feeding something. There are people who function like that, others who are more sponges regarding what they see.

In companies where creators are overexploited, for example, they have to have new ideas all the time . So they end up traveling a lot to find things, because we ask them so much to come out with something new, something new.

WE'RE NO LONGER IN THE SLOW AT ALL, YET. SAME FOR THE COLLECTIONS THAT COME AND GO.

We have this problem too. We put new things online, etc. It's general, we can't really escape it completely. We remain in a consumer system, even while having a slow ethic in the way of choosing certain materials, of working with the workshops, of having these reflections. Finding a balance is the challenge .

For the rest, there is an artisanal spirit here but in reality it is small industry . These are not truly hand-sewn pieces. I can't stand brands that call themselves "handmade".

Handmade is in camiceria in Naples, on jackets that take I don't know how many tens or hundreds of hours to make. It's really handmade, by seamstresses, in an ancient way. We do it by machine, it remains small industry workshops but there is an artisanal spirit in the way it is done.

THIS APPROACH AND THESE CONCERNS AROUND CLOTHING STILL REMAIN A NICHE, RIGHT?

Yes, we must also be able to allow ourselves to have these concerns. That's another subject but sometimes it's reserved for a certain category of people. We have reduced to the state of folklore certain ways of dressing using local materials, which come from popular cultures.

But on the other hand, there are some people who have the time, money or luxury to really understand what they wear , what they put on, to be interested in all of that. Not everyone is interested in it or aware of the issues.