Maison Blanchard

L'art du savoir

Le Tanneur x Maison Blanchard

Maison Blanchard is a design duo with a passion for working with leather and combining it with raw materials such as metal, wood, glass and wool. Inspired by their family’s traditional craftsmanship in working the land, Antoine and Julien have been creating pieces since 2023 that blur the lines between accessories and clothing. For them, the philosophy behind an object is every bit as important as the combination of materials. Each creation becomes “a fragment of thought” something worth taking the time to look at and reflect upon.We visited their studio in Aubervilliers to ask them a few questions about the five creations displayed in the windows of our Boulevard des Capucines boutique in Paris.

Discover the story behind this complex creative challenge, inspired by the themes of transformation and the passage of time.

Meet Maison Blanchard

You consistently combine leather with other materials inyour creations, sometimes even putting leather in the background. Could youtell us more about your creative approach?

Julien – Leather is the foundation of leather goods. But from our perspective as designers, everything has already been thought of, imagined and created. We feel we need to move beyond leather. It becomes really interesting to explore materials that don’t usually have a place in leather goods, such as wood, metal or even blown glass. For me, the idea is to keep leather as the starting point, while finding a way to move beyond it. From a creative perspective, it opens up incredible possibilities.

Where does this curiosity and interest in other materialscome from?

Antoine – We come from a family of farmers whose history goes back to the 1600s. We grew up spending our weekends and Wednesday afternoons on the family farm, surrounded by animals, hay, smells and colours. It has a strong influence on our work, because the materials we use are all authentic and precious, including high-quality leather.

When we work with metal, for example, it is raw metal that we have brushed ourselves. And the wool we use was shorn, carded and spun by hand in Brussels. That’s when you really understand the impact of the countryside on our work. There is a genuine respect for materials and for the gestures and skills involved in working with them. In farming, you learn through doing.

Could you tell us more about the pieces you created forour windows? What was your creative approach?

Julien – We were asked to create five art objects: a chair, a door, a coat hanger, a pillow and a shower, designed to dress the windows for the Autumn-Winter 2026 collection. The theme we were given was transformation. We therefore explored the transformation that has taken place in the relationship between humans and objects since the late 1960s. We started with everyday pieces of furniture and imagined these five objects as prompts for reflection, each with a unique relationship to the passage of time. The chair, for example, evokes the idea of learning differently. The door represents the realm of possibilities. And the coat hanger explores the notion of choice.

Is there a particular detail you would like to draw ourattention to?

Julien – I would say the peepholes in the doors. There are three concrete doors, each with a hole that you have to look through to see the bags. You can do this from outside the boutique, but also from inside, where you have to open the peephole to see the bag behind it.

What did you enjoy most about this collaboration with le Tanneur?

Antoine – Bringing together and harmonising two different eras, two visions and two creative approaches. Everyone knows Le Tanneur. It was fantastic to bring Le Tanneur’s historic savoir-faire face to face with that of our own house, which embraces a very contemporary approach.