Darwen nylon tote bag
ISABEL MARANT

It all started in 1989 when Isabel Marant launched Twen, her first knitwear and jersey brand, at 22 years old. She held her first show in her own name in 1995 in the courtyard of a squat, with her friends as models.

Barely three years later, she opened her first boutique in an old artists’ workshop. Her historic location is still on rue de Charonne, in the Bastille district.

Twenty-five years and fifty-two boutiques later, everything and nothing has changed…. Her vision remains the same. Isabel has always had a single-minded love of fashion. By age eleven, she knew exactly what she did and did not want to wear. As a teen, she rebelled against stifling conventions and created her own look, using restyled military coats and her father’s sweaters.

It was her love of clothing and materials that live and move that brought her to Studio Berçot, never to leave it.

While some dream of iconic women in glossy magazines, Isabel dresses women for their real lives – walking down the street or zipping off on a scooter. She never takes a piece out of her workshop without trying it on herself.

She has always encouraged handmade creations, and collection after collection has fought to keep traditional skills alive, an approach that she refers to as “the ecology of clothing”.