Born from a nickname,
passed down from hand to hand.
The first room on the right upon entering our house was a workshop. Walking in, you'd see an industrial sewing machine and boxes of gloves stacked from floor to ceiling. You might have caught a glimpse of Valoche, looking focused, sewing a glove or a balaclava.
The incessant roar of that machine, grumbling all day, from early morning until late at night. My mother worked from home, paid by the piece. Sometimes my grandmother would come to help her, using that famous stick she'd slip into the gloves to turn them inside out before putting them back in the boxes.
I watched, I listened. That's all I did. I was convinced it wasn't for me, that I wasn't good at it.
And then one day, I bought a kit and learned how to crochet. Then knitting, which I even took to school. Then sewing. Then embroidery, more recently. Each technique came at its own time, each taking its place in my life as if it had always been there.
I left my apprenticeship and school. Traditional work, hierarchy, pace, fitting into a box – that's not me. What is me is this: getting inspired, creating, thinking. Deciding for myself what I do and why.
Valoche Studio is the name of all this. Valoche — my mother's nickname, the one whose machine rumbled late into the night. I don't make the same things as her. But it's the same gesture, passed on in a different way.
✦ The Approach
What it means to do things right.
I work with certified natural materials: cotton, wool, linen. As little synthetic as possible. A net margin capped at 40% because the rest is not my money. And a portion of what comes in each month goes to charities or a fund for causes that are important to me.
Sufficient rather than maximized. Handmade rather than mass-produced. That's pretty much all I have to say on the subject.