after years of fast-fashion and compulsive consumption, it's a bit as if we had forgotten that a garment, before ending up on a rack, is the culmination of a long creative process. it is a concentrate of know-how, hard work, people, imagination and technique.
at salut beauté, we develop all our pieces from a to z, in paris. the development is as much the search for cuts, fabrics, silhouettes as the sketch, through the creation of patterns and the fitting of the prototypes. it is a long and laborious process, little known to consumers and which can vary from one house to another. at hi beauty, this process takes about 6 months.
how does it actually work?
it all starts with a clean sheet, like any creative process. and to choose the right direction, what better than to speak directly to the main people concerned, that is to say you, our very dear community? every 3 or 4 months, we provide you with a questionnaire, allowing you to formulate your desires, your needs and your areas for improvement.
then follows long weeks of research, moodboards, pinterest boards and fiery brainstorming. where do we put this button? how do you drop this sleeve? how many centimeters should the slit be? so many questions of the utmost importance, which will give the garment its soul.
after having made a freehand sketch (made by brenda herself), we entrust it to our superstar modeler who will, on this basis, make a canvas by hand. the canvas is the moment when the garment comes to life for the first time: it is quite simply the piece made from an unbleached cotton fabric, on which we will be able to make annotations, cut tests, up to what it seems perfect to us (several fabrics are generally necessary to achieve the desired result, especially when the cut is complex - we are talking about 2 to 3 fittings which can last several hours).
once the canvas has finally been validated, our pattern maker carries out a pattern. in other words, it will cut out all the “pieces” of the garment.
it is only after all these steps that we can finally make a prototype in the final fabric. the garment finally comes to life, as a whole.
why are we telling you all this? in a world where fast-fashion has established itself as a preferred mode of consumption, this creative process is increasingly rare. Why ? simply because it is time-consuming and expensive and therefore incompatible with the fast-fashion model by definition, which often relies on copy to save time and maximize margins.
it should be noted that, the lower the quantities produced, the more this process weighs particularly on the costs, the more the final product is expensive.
we think it's important to be aware of all this behind the scenes work, which is somehow the raison d'être of fashion, but which we often put aside today.
selection of materials & supplies
we select and source all of our materials and supplies ourselves, with care. why are you being told this? because often, it is the manufacturing workshops that take care of it for their customers (the brands), for more simplicity.
in other words, many brands collaborate with so-called “finished product” workshops, which start with a sketch and take charge of the development process, the sourcing of materials and everything that has just been described.
because yes, we are not going to lie to each other, it complicates things a lot to do everything yourself. so why are we doing this? first of all because we couldn't practice our upcycling model if we didn't buy our materials ourselves.
then, because it allows us to have an extra-fine knowledge of our product and maximum traceability. for example, have you ever noticed that our buttons have a particular, unique shape? they are made to measure in france, according to a design that we made ourselves (which takes the shape of our badge).
it also allows us to be sure that each piece of our clothing meets our criteria of quality, eco-responsibility and ethics.
because “parcels”, in other words “supplies”, there are in a garment. some examples :
- buttons
- zippers
- thread
- brand labels
- composition labels
- thermoadhesive (this is a thin film of fabric glued to the main fabric, which gives certain garments (or parts of the garment) a more rigid appearance. one thinks for example of jackets or shirt collars).
- the shoulder pads & cigarettes (the shoulder pads constitute a padding on the shoulders, essential to accentuate the build and give a better drape to the jackets. for a perfect finish, sleeve cigarettes are interposed between the headstock and the shoulder).
so yes, that supposes having many different interlocutors and constantly being on the alert in order to ensure restocking, but mastering the product is much more important on arrival and we know exactly what we are putting in your cabinets.