FAVEROLLES
Egg factory for the Parisian fashion world
ARTICLES
1. FAVEROLLES: A village named after chickens
2. SYLVIE GRUMBACH: The laying hen for young creatives
3. CRÉATEURS&INDUSTRIELS: The first scalded egg
4. LE PALACE: The henhouse in the heart of Paris
5. 2e BUREAU: Source of protein for the new creatives
6. DIDIER GRUMBACH: The crowing cock that awakens the creatives
FAVEROLLES
A village named after chickens
If you trust the so-called “omniscient” Internet, you will quickly learn that the village of “Faverolles” is quite insignificant and that there is actually nothing worth mentioning about this village, which is 1 hour and 24 minutes by car from Paris. Rather, Google tries to inform the reader about the chicken breed of the same name and offers the researcher a range of information about this race instead of continuing to deal with the meaningless village.
This chicken breed, which developed in the late 19th century, is still the largest egg supplier for Parisians today. So if you buy your eggs for your morning scrambled eggs at the Framprix on the street corner, there is a good chance that these eggs come from the Faverolles chicken breed and therefore originally from the village of the same name.
SYLVIE GRUMBACH
The laying hen for young creatives
But there is still a connection between Paris and the village, which is named after a couple of chickens. However, you can only find this connection if you leave the main street of the village and stop at an old abandoned-looking building, which tries to seal itself off from the outside world with its huge entrance gate. If you commit the seemingly forbidden act of opening this door, you enter a parallel universe, as if through a portal, filled with flowers, a lake and a flood of art. Works of art, designer furniture and sculptures are everywhere, depriving each other of air and sunlight. In all this hustle and bustle of works, you occasionally come across an elderly woman. She strolls through the garden and because of her age and her layered and inconspicuous outfit, you almost have to concentrate so that she doesn't get lost in all the works of art.
But this quiet, unassuming person, blurred in all the art, carries a wild and energetic story within her. She is the second link between Paris and this village, which has the same name as some insignificant breed of chicken that provides us Parisians with protein. Sylvie Grumbach was, and still is, the structure on which the fashion world, as we know it today and consume it every day, stands.
CRÉATEURS&INDUSTRIELS
The first scalded egg
Born in 1947, the granddaughter of the founder of the C.Mendes ready-to-wear factory, Sylvie quickly acquired a “passion” for the world of fashion, which she later described as the secret of her success. Her older brother, Didier Grumbach, took on the role of president of the clothing company in 1961, thus launching the Grumbach family's importance in the fashion world. After several internships in the textile and press sectors and a dismissal from a buying office for wearing pants (often forbidden to women at the time), Sylvie joined the family business as press officer.
Ten years after Didier's appointment as president of the C.Mendes clothing factory, he founded the company Créateurs & Industriels, which aimed to connect clothing manufacturers with young creatives and enable them to realize their ideas. His younger sister joined the company a year later and, together with Andrée Putman, they supported designers such as Issey Miyake, Jean Paul Gaultier and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac in realizing their ideas. Sylvie takes on the tasks of sales and press, further expanding the company's relevance.
In 1974, Sylvie leaves the company founded by her brother and devotes herself to her new job as press officer for the Valentino brand, which has just arrived in Paris. The Italian fashion house wanted to launch its new ready-to-wear collections in Paris and Sylvie spent the following years making the right connections to establish the house in the French capital. She repeatedly takes the Valentino team to the restaurant Le Sept and has dinner with them. After these dinners, when the Italian team have already finished for the evening, Sylvie goes down to the cellar of the restaurant to turn night into day in the included club.
(For a henhouse, artificial light can be used to great effect, as it helps the hens lay eggs faster). The artificial light installed in the Le Sept club also helped Sylvie to give her energy to young creatives. She met people like Jacques de Basher and Xavier de Castella and eventually became friends with the founder of the club, Fabrice Emaer. Fabrice Emaer, however, dreamed of a larger club. Inspired by the Studio 54 club in New York, he built a new location in 1978 and named it Le Palace.
LE PALACE
The henhouse in the heart of Paris
On March 1, 1978, the opening party of the new club in the rue du Faubourg-Montmartre took place, and Sylvie Grumbach was at the front of the queue as the club's new press officer. In the years that followed, she organized the guest lists and events, putting together a new party at Le Palace night after night. It became a meeting place for the beautiful and the beautiful, with personalities such as Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent, Paloma Picasso, Kenzo Takada and Andy Warhol. During a rock concert at Le Palace, Sylvie Grumbach also met Vivienne Westwood, who at that time was not yet publishing her work under her own name, but only running the store World's End with her ex-husband Malcolm Edwards. In 1983, club founder Fabrice Emaer died of AIDS and the artificial lights in Le Palace's chicken coop died with him.
2e BUREAU
Source of protein for the new creatives
Sylvie has to look for a new job and finally decides to set up her own press agency with her full address book. With the 2e BUREAU, she helps foreign designers to establish a foothold in Paris from 1984 onwards. Sylvie's task was to use her experience in the press and advertising sectors to integrate the newly arrived brands into the capital of fashion and to support them with their collection presentations. The company begins by representing the English punk Vivienne Westwood, whom Sylvie met during her time at Le Palace. In the beginning, the fashion companies only used clothing as a means of payment. But Sylvie donates as much energy as possible to the companies to help them grow in Paris.
In the year her company was founded, Sylvie also became aware of John Galliano, who was still a student at the time. She attended his graduation show at Central Saint Martins and followed the up-and-coming designer for the next few years. After Galliano's not-so-happy break-up with his English investors, the young Englishman and his assistant decide to move to Paris, where Sylvie welcomes him and literally feeds him. Sylvie housed him for the first few years and even provided him with food, such as soup, which he repeatedly praised. Sylvie gave her energy to the young Englishman until he was offered the position of head designer at Dior.
In the years that followed, Sylvie supported the young designer duo Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren with their brand Victor&Rolf. She helped them to realize their artistic aspirations and worked with them until the release of their own perfume. Sylvie supports the Dutch duo in their most difficult times and presents them with several possibilities to combine consumer-oriented fashion with artistic ideas.
The energy source Sylvie Grumbach still exists today and supports young creatives arriving in Paris, such as the up-and-coming German designer Boris Bidjan Saberi, who recently released a viral collaboration with the shoe manufacturer Salomon.
There are undoubtedly a lot of differences between the Faverolles chickens and Sylvie. The way they look, the way they walk, their intelligence... But there are also a few parallels. Both parties act as a supporting force for Paris, based in the small village of Faverolles. The roosters provide an essential source of energy for the inhabitants of the French capital through their eggs. This source of protein can be compared to Sylvie's support for young creatives. It was only with her support that the designers were able to establish themselves in the megacity of Paris and present their creations to the public. Sylvie donated the protein-rich eggs that people like Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano and Victor&Rolf needed to build up their muscles. It is only thanks to this seemingly inconspicuous person that many brands have managed to survive to this day and be on everyone's lips.
DIDIER GRUMBACH
The crowing cock that awakens the creatives
With a crowing cry, the cock signals its territory to other animals. It does this throughout the day, while at night it suppresses its crowing. Thanks to its internal clock, the rooster starts its signal calls again at sunrise, which is why they are often seen as a wake-up call. Especially in rural areas, this natural type of alarm clock can be very nerve-wracking for people who are not used to waking up early.
In the 1960s, ready-to-wear in France increasingly became an indispensable source of income for fashion houses and by 1966 at the latest, with Yves Saint Laurent's opening of an independent ready-to-wear store, the turning point could no longer be ignored. Many long-established designers initially detested the changing times and tried to suppress them for as long as possible. But in the mid to late 60s, many houses had no choice but to integrate themselves into this new world due to financial situations.
When Yves Saint Laurent founded his ready-to-wear store, Saint Laurent rive gauche, in 1966, he received support not only from his partner Pierre Bergé, but also from Didier Grumbach, president of the ready-to-wear manufacturer C.Mendes. Didier can be recognized as the third link between the chicken village and Paris.
During his time as president of the ready-to-wear manufacturer C.Mendes, he played one of the leading roles in the transition from couture to ready-to-wear. With the co-founding of Saint Laurent rive gauche, he was finally recognized by the Parisian fashion houses. The changing market meant that traditional designers had to adapt more and more to change, and so Didier Grumbach was repeatedly commissioned by couturiers at the end of the 1960s to visit or even work for them. This included Michel Goma, then creative director of the couture house Jean Patou. He wanted to visit Didier's ready-to-wear factories and was very interested at the beginning of his visit. He was fascinated by the factory, which employed 80 workers, and the machines that produced the loops for the pants, for example, without human assistance. However, after a while, the atmosphere, the hectic pace and the clamor of the machines make the couturier so sick that he eventually has to be carried out of the factory on a bench.
For Didier Grumbach, however, the most extreme encounter with a couturier was with Cristobal Balenciaga. This encounter is so formative for both people that it even marks the climax of the 6-part Disney+ series about the life and work of Cristobal Balenciaga.
In 1968, after persuading his good friend Hubert de Givenchy, the Spanish couturier gave ready-to-wear a chance and accepted a collaboration with the French airline Air France. He is to design the new workwear for the stewardesses, which will then be produced by the C.Mendes factory. Didier Grumbach produces the 19,000 garments and completes the order a few weeks later. Several days after C.Mendes delivered the garments to Air France, Cristobal called Didier and asked him to come to his office with a mannequin. He does so and is immediately greeted by Cristobal with several instructions. The Spanish couturier wants to show the French factory owner how to tailor his designs for Air France for each stewardess. Didier then has to wake the Spaniard up and explain to him that the garments are produced according to standardized measurements. Cristobal Balenciaga falls silent at this statement and soon after says goodbye to the fashion world.
Image from the “Cristobal Balenciaga” Disney+ series (left: Cristobal Balenciaga; right: Didier Grumbach)
The crowing of the cock is often perceived as a wake-up call. This wake-up call can be compared to Didier Grumbach's encounters with the traditional couturiers. Didier woke up Parisian haute couture, whether intentionally or not, and saved it from never waking up again.
