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.

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(**).

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.

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