VIRGINIE DUCATILLON
The luxury of slow fashion
At the head of the Adapta agency that she founded a little over a year ago, Virginie Ducatillon is revolutionising the leather industry in France.
After 10 years of working in some of the biggest luxury houses(Hermès, Chanel, Céline ... nothing less ; ) ), Virginie Ducatillon wanted to develop a project that would be meaningful for her and for the leather industry in France. The idea came up to make the link between the immense quantities of leather left to be abandoned by the manufacturers of luxury houses, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the designers, who have great difficulty in accessing the most beautiful materials for their creations and their micro-capsules. Thus Adapta was born, a circular economy company that responds 100% to the current imperatives of zero waste and slow fashion, while offering ultra-desirable and luxurious materials!
Virginie regularly travels around France in search of the best leathers and offers them to designers in her Parisian workshop. Big News! From the end of January 2020, Adapta will have its own e-commerce platform! The platform will enable Adapta to have a greater impact in terms of the volume of materials used, thanks to access to direct stocks from the biggest luxury houses. The collections will therefore be larger and not just for limited editions. The Adapta agency has not finished making news! In the meantime, Virginie has emptied her purse to tell us about her daily life and her love for leather.
Who are you? I am the founder of Adapta, a company that is part of a circular economy and awareness of the use of materials in fashion. The idea is to be able to recover unused leather stocks from the largest French tanneries, but also from manufacturers and the central stocks of luxury houses, in order to make them available to designers.
I launched my project in September 2018, after working in product development for the biggest French leather goods houses. I wanted to switch to slow fashion, to stop being subjected to the frantic pace of collections and above all to carry a project that made sense to me, using my experience in the fashion and luxury sector. I was shocked by the amount of unused leather, which is sometimes even destroyed! So I thought that there was a niche to be filled to allow designers to access these top-of-the-range leathers for their capsule collections. It is an approach that allows a double valorization of the leather sector: upstream for the tanneries who can optimize their stocks and trace them, and downstream for the designers who can have access to beautiful material at a lower cost.
Which bag(s) do you use on a daily basis? At the moment I'm oscillating between 2 big bags. Today I carry the Cabas Phantom Céline, it's beautiful, very pleasant to carry; it's almost like a blanket. I've had it for 4 years (privilege to have worked for big brands ;) ). It has a huge capacity.
THE tote bag - doudou de Virginie (Cabas Phantom de chez Céline)
What do you carry in it? I put my computer, a Chanel wallet, a separate pocket with my chargers, my tangled headphones and my hand cream. I also have my notebook. I love paper and notebooks in general. I've only recently gone digital for my diary, but for everyday life I write everything down in beautiful notebooks that I buy at exhibitions. At the moment it's a beautiful Mirò notebook. I always have a scarf, my business cards (in my Celine card holder), and finally my key ring.
What items do you always carry in your bag (your must-haves)? I would say my navigo pass (to run from one appointment to another), my phone, my wallet and my computer, always with me since I'm "nomadic".
Virginia's barda
How do you find your keys? I use a Hermes Paddock charm in the shape of a horseshoe. I had developed this collection at the time. I hijacked it by attaching my keys to it. They are easy to find with the orange colour and the long link at the end of the leather horseshoe. I put them in an inside pocket of my bag.
An anecdote (a (mis)adventure with your bag...)? When I was working in leather goods for luxury houses, I was often asked to do wear tests. In general, I used to get incredible bags for 3 weeks to a month to use them on a daily basis. I would then make a little report. I had collected a beautiful lambskin bag for work and as I was planning to go to a concert, I chose to put it in a cotton totebag to protect it (too proud of my idea). The problem was that it was a concert that was, shall we say, dynamic and I love being in the pit. So, after 2 hours, I took the bag out of the totebag, and with the rubbing, the edges of the bag had completely burned! the ultimate crash test! I felt a bit pitiful at the time.
What do you take with you on holiday? I use a lot of tote bags that I collect. I must have about thirty of them! I always have a clutch bag too. Sometimes I slip a small zipped clutch bag from Hermès into my travel bag, which is very practical. It's very chic and I can use it to go out.
Do you ever go out after work, how do you carry your bag? If I'm going out for a dinner or an exhibition, I usually put a small bag in my big tote. It's very practical to have a small bag slung over my shoulder so that I can have everything at hand in these cases.
How do you reconcile your professional and personal life in your bag? Everything is mixed up!
Do Parisian women have a specific relationship with their bags? I don't think so. There is no longer "one fashion". I think we hear a lot less about "it bags" and it's all about functionality now. There is no real uniformity. You see tote bags, tote bags, mini bags and fanny packs on the street. I would say that there is no such thing as a Parisian bag, as there used to be.
Your self-portrait: I would say my modjo of the moment: " they didn't know it was impossible so they did it ". It may sound a bit corny but it's a bit of what I experience in my business, and it's an optimistic quote, which defines me well ;)!