Next week, we will present our rather special espadrilles to you, in collaboration with a brand that we will unveil shortly. In addition to their atypical construction, they are made from a fabric woven in France.
And the weaver behind it, Manufacture Métis, has a pretty incredible story, made of tenacity, perseverance, self-training, but also trials of all kinds.
Before talking to you about the fabric for our espadrilles for next week, we said to ourselves that the story of Manufacture Métis was worth telling and sharing, because it illustrates the extent to which France can accommodate know-how. to do unique and singular, when we demonstrate a good dose of courage and resilience.
And it’s Mathieu who will tell you his story.
Benedict
Welcome to Franche-Comté, in the town of Etupes, where Cédric Plumey has set up his Métis Manufacture and is working to give new life to old machines. One objective: to give the fabric its former luster.
The Métis Manufacture is the meeting of two stories, that of forgotten weaving machines and that of Cédric, whose search for authenticity led to these machines from another era.
The adventure began in 2014, with a master's degree in management after leaving a business school and two years spent at Vuitton, Cédric Plumey opted for another life, another setting. Its objective is clear: to make fabric .
He then decides to leave Paris and the career that awaits him, to return to his region of origin and set up his weaving workshop.
"I came back home to launch my project. You can't have a 300 m2 workshop in Paris and work alone. The environment would also be less pleasant. I couldn't see myself living there."
Without any particular training in the field but with an overflowing desire, he began his theoretical apprenticeship by immersing himself in old books from the 30s and 40s of textile engineering courses found on Le Bon coin or Amazon. He also meets people in the profession.
The particularity of the Métis Manufacture? It is based on old textile machines renovated and put back into working order.
Cédric Plumey traveled the world to buy, dismantle, reassemble and adapt weaving machines, winders, warping machines and other machines whose origins date back to the beginning of the 20th century. Its ten machines come from France, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland.
He familiarizes himself with the mechanics for entire months, rebuilding the machines (a job that takes 2 weeks for the simplest ones, two months for the most complicated ones) before starting production.
All preparation and weaving stages are carried out in-house, from the spools of thread to the fabric. The first orders arrive at the end of 2017.
One of the first fabrics he produced was selvedge fabric with old shuttle machines. For him, the old has the advantage of creating a greater density of weaving , with a more assertive character, touch and appearance, visible on old fabrics, and which he tries to reproduce.
But “at the beginning reality caught up with me, I did what was asked of me to be able to sell and get by” he concedes before recalling that his work base is based on an entire archive of fabrics old French, collections made over time, old samples from the 1900s to 1960s.
“From a technical point of view, these fabrics are simply more beautiful than those produced on modern machines. Added to this is the whole story they tell. ".
Sectional warping machine.
The fabrics are developed from a selection of natural fibers including cottons, linens, wools and silks, from European spinning mills.
“ I try to choose in the most ecological and responsible way possible ” with organic cotton, recycled cotton, doing a lot of tests to choose the materials.
The wool is bought in England and Italy, the cotton bought in Germany but grows in Turkey (whose certification is more secure), the linen grows in France and is spun in Poland.
And of course, “mixed” fabrics, made from fibers of different types (cotton/linen), have a good place. “It's just what I like to do, and that's why I gave it the name — besides the fact that it sounded good — a fabric produced from various blends to create more interesting textures.”
Winding machine for silks.
We feel it when we talk with Cédric, the search for quality comes first, a perfectionism which explains such recklessness. “I’m never happy with what I do but it’s essential if you don’t want to stagnate.”
From the start, perseverance seems to be the common thread of his destiny as a weaver. Because the walk was long, sometimes painful, it took him about a year and a half to get used to it.
“You have plenty of obstacles from a technical point of view, especially from a commercial point of view, in weaving.
I do not count them anymore. Several times I asked myself questions, I wanted to stop, so you have to persevere, give yourself objectives and the means to achieve them at all costs, have a plan.”
He experienced the production of his first fabric – “a simple white canvas” he told me – as a real victory. He kept it as a souvenir.
Mechanisms of a Picanol loom.
Since the end of 2019, Cédric has been able to “make a living from his work” and has found his cruising speed. A jack of all trades, a bit of a loner, he takes care of workshop production, commercial relations, accounting, communication and his website.
The days are long and busy.
“Working alone doesn’t bother me, after all I’m not saying that I will work with anyone but that’s not on the agenda, I’m doing well like that.”
We must also not forget the difficulties of recruiting in the textile sector, "there are very few young people who are starting out, the average age is more like 50/60 years old, so it would not be easy to find 'other employees anyway'. So confinement didn't pose a problem for him, it was easy to practice social distancing...
Order books are full despite the health crisis . Demand has not weakened, only a few customers have had difficulty paying.
In the coming months, the Métis Manufacture should expand its range, with new machines, and start selling to individuals or semi-professionals, in particular to small creators who make small quantities, and then why not finished products, type of household linen or accessories.
History is therefore in no danger of stopping: “all authentic creation is a gift for the future” wrote Camus. Manufacture Métis proves it.
To be continued…
I hope that the discovery of this adventure touched you as much as it did us.
For our part, when we saw all this, we promised ourselves we would work with Cédric one day.
We did it for our espadrilles in collaboration with E**a***l**, with three fabrics that I find superb! I'll keep you surprised 😉
See you next week
Benedict
Benoit
