In a period where solidarity is the most emphasized value, it is good to remember that the initiatives undertaken did not wait for the crises to flourish. The young Léa Pieche created the fashion brand Les Grenades, which supports varied and concrete social causes. She tells us how such a project allows her to act for what is close to her heart.
How did you come up with the idea for this project? I see that this is linked to your family history, how did you decide to act via fashion?
Yes, the idea came to me following my family history. I grew up surrounded by four women (my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and my aunt), three of whom had one or more cancers. I was in high school, first the first time this disease came into my life, it first affected my mother then my grandmother and then my aunt. It was around this same period that I started to have entrepreneurial desires, it was still very vague but I felt deep inside that I wanted to create something.
Over the years and the cancers that have affected my family, I also knew that I would one day be involved in the fight against breast cancer. For the idea of the Grenades to come, only one ingredient was missing: embroidery.
I started embroidering at the end of 2018 and one evening, while looking for embroidery ideas on Instagram, I came across a breast embroidery, with lots of breasts of different shapes. It was February 2019 and this is where the idea of making embroidered T-shirts to fight breast cancer was born.
I think Les Grenades is a solidarity and feminist brand more than a fashion brand. Clothing has imposed itself on me more than I have chosen. The T-shirt is the basic garment that everyone has, whether to go out or just to sleep, everyone wears T-shirts. And then I also have in mind the T-shirts with messages, you can speak just by wearing a piece of clothing and I think it's great. I try to create visuals that are not too explicit, if we are already sensitive to the supported cause the visual seems obvious but for others it is not always. It opens the discussion on feminist subjects and that's what I want with Les Grenades. I want these subjects to be put forward, that we talk about them so that we can move towards better equality.
Do you think fashion can act in society?
I even think that fashion should act! It should act on any subject of sustainable development in the broad sense (I bring equality into sustainable development).
Fashion is one of the most important spending items for French people and it is also one of the most polluting industries. If we push a little further, it is also one of the causes of the judgment of women and LGBTQI + people (we will estimate that a woman in a mini skirt will have more deserved to be raped than a woman in jogging, we're going to harass a trans person on the clothes she's wearing, we're going to blame a woman for not dressing well enough …).
Fashion already has an important role in our lives and its actors should take advantage of it to return this power and act positively on society.
How do you choose the projects with which you collaborate?
The Grenades has not yet blown its first candle, so the causes that we support, I choose them a bit by feeling or in relation to current events. I am trying to create a real community around Grenada with Instagram, and I really enjoy interacting with the people who follow the project. Some people give me ideas of causes to support or tell me about their fight, it also inspires me a lot.
Most of the causes I choose according to my personal commitment, for example even before its launch in October, I was already thinking about it. Violence against women is the subject that immediately came to mind for the second collection.
For excision it was different, I was looking for ideas of causes to support by looking at the "world days" of the year. When I saw that February 6 was the international day against genital mutilation I realized that we heard very little about this subject, I myself knew little and badly, it was necessary that I do something with it.
I worked on menstrual insecurity with the illustrator Ginto, 1.7 million women are affected in France, for excision it is 200 million women excised in the world. This figure is huge, genital mutilation is of extreme physical, moral and psychological violence and yet we do not talk about it.
How did your commitment against female genital cutting come about?
He was born by informing me about the subject and by meeting the association Excision, Parlons-en!
I knew very little about this subject. I also realized that I had stereotypes on these mutilations, I thought that they were related to the religion for example whereas not at all. And above all, the figures I discovered are staggering!
Today in France there is more and more talk of the clitoris, its shape (which is anything but a small button or a small dot as you might think in textbooks). We complain that it is unknown, that it is not appreciated for its fair value but we too often forget that today still millions of women are cut for unfounded beliefs.
How are the funds that you have been able to donate thanks to your different collections used?
It obviously varies according to the collections, because they do not support the same causes and the same structures / associations.
The "Pink October" collection on breast cancer, 50% of donations are donated to the Institut Curie for research against breast cancer and the remaining 50% are for the association "Tout le monde contre le cancer" which intervenes in hospitals with different events or activities. They make for example the Pink Escape which is a caravan with socio-estheticians to take care of the patients but also of their carers and caregivers.
The association "En avant toutes", supported with the collection "Sista lova lova", needs donations for its online chat. They have created an anonymous chat where victims of violence can come and talk with professionals about the violence they are experiencing and get advice on how to get out of it. They also work in schools to do prevention.
Excision, let's talk about it! supported with the latest collection "Don't cut me" works in network with different actors and actresses in France and in the world, they promote debate with public authorities to put the fight against excision on the global agenda and need donations for the operation of the association.
With the illustrator Ginto we created together panties against menstrual precariousness, it was sold temporarily for 2 weeks in January. For this sale we wanted to work a little differently from what I used to do. Each panty purchased was not a sum of money donated to an association but a pack of sanitary towels given to the association Rules Elementaires. To do this, we brought in a fourth player, the Périodes brand, which manufactures organic and fully recyclable cotton protections. We collected 51 packs, which Periods rounded up to 55, and they were given to a structure in Aix en Provence with which Elementary Rules works.
How do you choose the illustrators?
For the moment I have worked with two illustrators for two different projects.
I started with Ginto whom I met on Instagram during Pink October, I launched Les Grenades and she was doing portraits to talk about breast cancer. We immediately got closer and we wanted to create something together, that's how we made the pants against menstrual precariousness. Ginto is a bit like a professional crush, she is one of the first people I met thanks to Grenades.
Then I worked with Xuân Calen for the collection "Don't cut me", I asked him to create the illustration for this collection. It was Xuân who contacted me by email a few months earlier, I really liked his work so we stayed in touch on Instagram. When I wanted to work with an illustrator for this project, I immediately thought of her, I already knew her work and her way of doing things, that reassured me. And obviously she was able to perfectly transcribe what I wanted for this collection when I myself had only very vague ideas!
In general, I really like the work of illustrators, I'm a lot on Instagram, but for the moment I don't really "choose" them, it's more about dating. When I have an idea in mind, there is often a person who corresponds to it and with whom I want to work. And when you take a closer look, they are often women who look a bit like me, and so I recognize myself in their work, I recognize the values conveyed by Les Grenades in what they do and what they are.