PARIS — Leather goods brand Polène is in full bloom.
If the openings of multistory flagships in London and Paris weren’t enough, the idea is writ large across the French company’s Parisian headquarters, at the corner of Rue du Louvre and Rue Montmartre.
There’s a tumble of XXL petals on the facade of this nine-level, 40,000-square-foot building, which since November has been home to 180 employees, including an eight-strong prototyping team.
From Wednesday, its 670-square-foot ground floor retail space, known as 67 Rue Montmartre, will be a “Leather Florist” pop-up running through July 26.
But the brand’s in-demand purses are nowhere to be seen. The stars here are handcrafted leather blooms, part Polène’s Plèi line, a collection dedicated to items upcycled from offcuts from its bag production.
Neatly arrayed along the walls are new takes on the orchids, dahlia or bird of paradise flowers introduced in 2024, plus a handful of bag charms making their debut in person in Paris and online.
Polène’s “Tul” leather flower.
Benoît Florençon/Courtesy of Polène
“The idea was creating an encounter around flowers, the [craft] of the florist and the leather goods artisan, so that people can appreciate the long-term timescale and gestures of craftsmanship,” said Polène cofounder and chief executive officer Antoine Mothay.
Designs come in colors that devotees will recognize from the French brand’s purses, with prices starting at 60 euros for one that is reminscent of a tulip and up to 95 euros for a cluster of curved petals that’s a cross between a wisteria and an orchid.
On the central counter, floral designer Rym Boughatene, who cut her teeth at the likes of fashion favorites Debeaulieu and Castor Fleuriste, turns any purchase into dried-flower bouquets that also call for the likes of statice flowers, eucalyptus leaves and stalks of quaking grass.
But what Mothay wants people to walk away with isn’t a leather flower or charm — it’s an understanding of what Polène is all about.
“There isn’t a huge commercial goal [to the pop-up],” he told WWD ahead of the opening. “This is about awareness, transmission and we hope that visitors and clients can better understand the DNA of the brand, what touches us and appeals to us every day.”
Each flower takes between two and 3.5 hours to make from start to finish, a point driven home by a craftsperson shown making them throughout the three months, demonstrating on the spot how pieces of leather are cut, curled and stitched in place.
Case in point: that wisteria-orchid mix, dubbed “Orki,” is eight layers of folded leather, stitches done by hand, a shaped line running down the leaf and numerous hours of edge painting, a time-intensive step that requires a fair amount of dexterity.
Individual leather flowers and finished bouquets that also include dried plans.
Benoît Florençon/Courtesy of Polène
“It’s a good way to start explaining to people what we’re capable of as a leather goods specialist, what sets us apart from other houses,” the CEO said.
Striking a fair balance between artisanal complexity and accessible pricing is Polène’s North Star from the onset. It’s a message that’s been widely heard by consumers, even more so after its bags appeared on Netflix’s hit show “Emily in Paris.”
In 2023, the brand’s sales reached 142.7 million euros. While Mothay declined to give figures on growth or sales, he said “the dynamic was very good” and that they were “very happy that [business] grows a little stronger than what we imagined.”
Retail openings in prime locations have come at a steady clip in the past year, with a 2,640-square-foot flagship in Seoul’s fashionable Sinsa-dong neighborhood; a 4,845-square-foot two-story unit on London’s Regent Street in December, and its Rond-point des Champs-Élysées store, which will total more than 7,500 square feet on three levels once it is fully opened. The ground and first floors have already opened.
There is such demand that the brand can’t seem to keep its star models in stock, despite some 700 employees in Ubrique, Spain, and an additional 1,400 craftspeople in external workshops around the Spanish city that also produce for the brand, many exclusively.
Adding new workshops can’t be done at the snap of a finger. According to the CEO, it takes between eight and 14 months to properly onboard a new workshop and reach a significant volume.
Such effervescence around Polène purses has left the company with another challenge: mounds of off-cuts.
They can reach 30 to 60 percent depending on the type of skin, despite Polène patterns that maximize the surface used, reuse for linings and other clever optimizations. What’s left is still good quality leather, despite natural irregularities, small defects or being too small to be used.
A craftsperson will make flowers and there’s also an option for personalizing the bag charms.
Benoît Florençon/Courtesy of Polène
So far, the company has been able to use around 10 percent of current-collection leftovers in Plèi items, plus another 10 percent used for small leather goods not part of its upcycled range.
Another 10 percent is also extensively used for decor and furniture in retail projects — in London, a wall of bricks made of compressed leather consumed over a ton.
Polène didn’t stopped there in the quest to give a new life to leather offcuts. One popular item is the Solé bag, a hand-knotted number featuring injected pebbles obtained by combining leather ground into fine powder with a biosourced polymer.
Going forward, the Plèi collection will be given more visibility in upcoming retail projects that will include Copenhagen and Milan. A definitive format isn’t set yet, with Mothay suggesting it could be rotating selections.
That said, don’t expect a flood of upcycled items.
“Plèi projects have a high complexity, whether technological or artisanal, so we will stay on moderate volumes because those we work with have [limited] capacity,” Mothay said. “And we like that quantities remain limited, to preserve an exceptional side of the products.”