I grew up in restaurants in the Netherlands when I was a small child, working and helping out in them, as all children with entrepreneurial parents end up doing, with the odd exciting trip to Paris thrown in every now and then, as a break from routine and school.
Leather Ateliers in Paris back then (80’s and early 90’s) are probably not what you think they would look like. You probably think they look like vast workshops, or factories, big and in industry type areas. In my personal memory they don’t.
Instead I remember they were dotted in and around central Paris, situated within apartments, which were usually walk up only, with old creaky floorboards. Ours were in the 3rd, 18th and 19th arrondissements, I remember vividly using the metro stations of Republique, Belleville, Arts et Metiers and Pigalle extensively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartier_Asiatique?wprov=sfti1 Quartier Asiatique
These were cramped full of Singer heavy industrial sewing machines, cutting tables, moulds, rolls and rolls of leather, thread, wooden shapes, pots of wax and these type products. And people, lots of people.
(A lot of the apartments back then did not have their own toilets at the time, instead there were communal toilets in the corridors on all levels. Often they were not the sit down variety of toilet, but rather the squat versions that sit into the floor. I still have a powerful dislike even now, for pink toilet paper....) Small industrial works within what should be a home environment.
From memory we were not allowed even 1mm deviation from brand standards, so when we had new apprentices in, one of my uncles would once again have to patiently explain and enforce brand standards.
Pieces that were deemed below standard would head for immidiate and controlled destruction.
I have extremely warm feelings for my visits back then when I was small, and still now when I deal with my vintage pieces, I wonder which uncle may have put the piece together back then. Or was it somebody else’s uncle?
Mid nineties the focus of the central Parisien ateliers shifted more towards repairs, rather than manufacture after the large centralisation of production to outside northern Paris, to a large hub near Compiègne where it still remains today.
My memories are my own, unfortunately due to multiple home burglaries we have no photographs left from the time, and even if I did, we signed confidentiality agreements so I could not violate these anyway.... so attached are pictures of proud Parisian business owners instead. As we were proud too x.
We visited the Italian relatives less, for no other reason than distance to the Netherlands, so my memory of their operations I will share another day. Stay safe everyone.
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