Upcycled fashion accessories made in France

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Bilum is manufacturing luggage, clutch bags and accessories from flags, sails, flexible coated or decorative canvas, life jackets, paper posters or luxury furnishing fabrics and even airbags, that have a history. Everything is made in France.

To start Billum in 2005, Hélène de La Moureyre has been guided by the common sense of her Elders and the one learned in the course of her travels: recovering, upcycling and recreating have been her key words. She has been sponsored by Dominique Peclers, founder of the eponymous trends bureau and Yann-Arthus Bertrand, French committed photographer.

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The raw materials are sourced locally and sometimes from luxury brands. They are selected for their design and their history: occasionnally fragmentary or dirty, they are carefully cut in the Choisy-le-Roi workshop, a stone throw from Paris. The flexible canvas green cleaning is made on site, by an ÉSAT(*) devoted to social inclusion working and fabrics are washed by professional laundries with an EA certification(**).

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The production is made by craftsmen and by leather workers and saddlers for more technical unique pieces whose enterprises are mainly certified ÉSAT(*) or EA(**). Bilum has manufactured several capsule collections in a limited edition for Agnès B., the Bon Marché, the Centre Pompidou, Corso Como in Séoul and Isetan in Tokyo.

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Photos © Bilum

(*) An ÉSAT (Établissement et service d’aide par le travail)  is a social health-care institution who offers professionally compensated activity and a medico-pedagogic follow-up to people whose working capacities do not allow them to work in a classical environment.
(**) An EA (Entreprise Adaptée) has to employ at least 80% of disabled workers

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Saturday 1 April 2023, 11:00