craftsmen with silver hands

By Sophie Abriat

Published today at 06:00

In the JM Weston luxury shoe workshop in Limoges.

When people visit the workshop and see all the steps involved in making a sweater, they walk away saying: “It’s not expensive after all. », observes Luc Lesénécal. The president of Saint James Tricots proudly lists all the stages necessary for the manufacture of the brand’s typical sailor sweater, preferably navy blue, classically buttoned at the shoulder, sold for 139 euros.

“I am proud to have obtained this label. Not everyone has it, there is a real selection. You can’t cheat, you don’t pay to have it, as with others, there is an audit, it’s serious business. Antoine Agulhon, co-manager of La Botte Gardiane

Who would suspect that it takes 23 kilometers of wool yarn passed between eighteen hands to make such a piece? But also a specific know-how of remeshing, that is to say the fixing of the collar to the body, stitch by stitch, to give it elasticity and solidity. This technique requires more than eighteen months of learning, like each of the 75 trades of the house, insists the boss.

Once the panels have been knitted, the seamstresses, with a trained eye, carry out the re-sewing, as we say in Norman patois: they catch up by hand the stitches that have jumped and remove, with the help of a magnifying glass, each of the impurities, like those strands of straw intertwined in woolen threads. The cotton jerseys used to make marinières are, for their part, cut in ” mattress “ of twenty layers, cut with a circular saw following a pattern drawn with chalk which guarantees perfect alignment between the stripes of the sleeves and those of the trunk.

The certainty of well thought out and well made objects

In the workshop, which brings together 260 artisans, the brand has its own instructors. The latter have themselves received training as trainers to pass on this precious know-how, earning the company the Living Heritage Company (EPV) label. These three letters sound like a code name. Still little known to the general public, the EPV label is the pride of those who obtain it. It takes the form of a red logo that craftsmen like to display at the entrance to their workshop as a hard-earned reward. For customers, more than a promise, it is the certainty of well thought out and well made objects. “The EPV is the cream of made in France. Producing in France is not in itself a guarantee of quality, the EPV is! »,emphasizes Luc Lesénécal.

Between EPV labels, we recognize each other, we respect each other, we collaborate. We also know that we are part of a family that is increasingly watched, at a time when craftsmanship – if it is well marketed – not only is no longer considered anachronistic, but constitutes an additional asset for to sell. “These companies together watch over a treasure: that of the French manufacturing and artisanal heritage. They are the showcase of high French manufacturing,” we add to the National Institute of Crafts (INMA), which has managed this label since 2019. Neither more nor less than“a quest for French excellence as in the 18th centuryand century “, says the institute.

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