Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Putz Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Sheet. And today with me on the show is jeweler and designer Charlotte Cheney. We're talking about building a brand in the fine jewelry market, the cost of gold, shopping for fashion in 2026, and so much more. before we get going i wanted to remind you that if you like this podcast you'll definitely love puck where i send an email called line sheet if you're a fashion person you get that reference it's an original look at what's really going on inside the fashion and beauty industries line sheet is scoopy analytical and above all fun along with me a subscription to puck gains you access to an unmatched roster of experts reporting on powerful people and companies in entertainment, media, sports, politics, finance, the art world, and much more. If you're interested, listeners of Fashion People get a discount. Just go to puck.news slash fashion people to join puck or start a free trial. Happy Friday, everyone, and happy Milan Fashion Week. We've seen a lot this week already. diesel jill sander fendi margney emporio armani today's gucci and laura piana tomorrow's bottega and ferragamo and then i am out i'm not staying for giorgio armani if you are please send me a full report next week becky malinsky will be here to discuss what we liked and what we didn't like and why we love the city of milan and we love eating here uh i still need to have some gelato i'll do that tomorrow but this week on line sheet you'll find plenty of reports from the shows But also, I did a big deep dive on the business of Jens and Emma Greed, Popular Culture, their holding company, which is where they operate Skims and Good American. And more recently, the Elder Statesman, that super high-end cashmere label started by Greg Chait in Los Angeles. more recently I heard from a bunch of sources that they were in talks to partner with Elsa Hosk on her fashion line called Halsa which is currently produced in partnership with Revolve she owns it but Revolve is like the operating partner and I've heard from many sources that she's looking to go outside. And it sounds like she's gotten pretty far with the Greeds and their investment partners. So it's a really interesting story about sort of like, and there's some tidbits about how Nike Skims is performing. So if you're interested in the Greeds, if you're interested in Nike Skims, if you're interested in Greg Chait, if you're interested in Elsa Hosk, which she has like 8 million followers. She's one of those people who obviously know her work. And I wrote a book about Victoria's Secret. I obviously have, you know, I know a decent amount about her, but she's incredibly influential. And the business from my reporting is about $35 million. It could be $350 million, many of these investors believe. So one to watch, but I hope you enjoy it. on Wednesday Rachel had a great deep dive on Sephora and on Friday Sarah Shapiro is looking at what people are actually buying in stores right now it's kind of hard to tell so please check that out and enjoy this interview with Charlotte it's a really nice sort of prep for the fashion week that is to come which is Paris she'll be showing her new collection I think but more importantly it's very french and talks about being a business owner in france and all that stuff and it's fascinating enjoy charlotte chanet welcome to fashion people hello hi nice to see you everyone i'm so happy you're here so what do you have for breakfast this morning uh like regular breakfast a soft boiled egg oh like a grill um how do you say in english sourdough bread sourdough bread sourdough bread exactly yeah perfect a piece of ham that sounds delicious yeah yeah yeah yeah i love breakfast like oh me too that's that savory breakfast is the way to go for sure. So, so Charlotte, we were talking a little bit offline about your, your sort of life from real life to, to work and you work in, in the first, tell us a bit about what you do. So I'm a designer. I have a jewelry brand that I launched 10 years ago, almost 11, actually 2015 and still working for other brands as a regular designer. So regular, I don't know if it's really mean anything but I'm working on like also like ready-to-wear line, shoe line, bag line and recently also working on home interior collection for another brand. So yeah let's say that my main job is working on my jewelry line and I also design other pieces for other brands on the side. So how did you end up becoming a jewelry designer? Did you go to school for that? Did you go to school for I went to school for fashion uh although it was quite a quick uh I would say like uh apprentissage because I just said like it's a it's a small school that called Studio Bersot and it's closed since but after Studio Bersot staying there for two years in Paris I started to work almost immediately after at Balenciaga with Nicolas Ghesquière and I stayed there as a designer for almost almost 10 years I I'm I stopped before just after he quit so nine years and few months were you working on ready to wear there or yes I was working on ready to wear because I come from a more ready to wear school and I started there also working on jewelry quite randomly but now that I look at it maybe it was not so random but basically Nicolas asked me to work on collection for jewelry because he wanted jewelry for a show and nobody was doing it at that time so it was like oh you want to do you want to explore jewelry and I was like yeah sure and this is how I started so having no clue about how you do jewelry how you work on it so but the way we were working at Nicolas studio was very like almost from scratch every season trying to learn about the technique about the fabric about the material so spending a lot of time in like craftsman place and this is where I learned a lot of how to make jewelry I'm so glad that you mention, Nicola, because I always thought it was Gessguierre and not Gessguierre, but all Americans say Gessguierre. Yeah, I know. No, no. I mean, he said Gessguierre, but it's true that French-wise, you could say Gessguierre as well. You could say it. Well, but you know, Delphine Arnaud has said it when I remember interviewing her and she also says Gessguierre. So I am going to go with what you just said. But what was it like working there at that time? Because I've been thinking about those collections a lot. They're very much in the air fashion wise. And even the new Chloe campaign, there's this shot of all the girls wearing floral dresses that feels very his era of Balenciaga. I remember I had a knockoff dress of the dresses that he did. And I have a couple pieces that I got at sample sales and things like that but it feels so it just feels so right right now but it was so influential on everything it was a dream to work there uh it was really hard a lot of commitment a lot of sacrifice but super happy I did it and I learned so much and so rich and so impactful on who I am today. So yeah, it was terrific. Like we had to learn basically from one season to another. We had to relearn everything because Nicolas was not, I wouldn't say he was bored quickly, but he really loved to go from one, I don't know, story for a season to a totally different one the season after using different technique, different material, different silhouette. And also the way we worked on the collection was quite unusual because we didn't really work on clothes. We work on silhouettes. So immediately from the first fitting, six months before the show, we were already trying on this jacket with this skirt and immediately it was going to be this look until the end. Of course, sometimes it changed, but it was not like most of the fashion house today. They work on different clothes. And then before the show, they do the styling session and poof, the silhouette arrived. With Nicolai, it was totally different. So the process and also the way to look at fashion was very different because he really had in mind a full silhouette from almost from the beginning. Yeah, it's interesting because I wonder if that's why it was so influential because of the fact that like that's what I remember even his first Louis Vuitton show. The same thing. It was like a little skirt and that skirt proliferated everywhere. But it was also the era that the high street and Zara and H&M had become really important. And it was just like every single thing that Balenciaga did, it was somehow dictating what everyone was wearing day to day. And I don't think that really happens anymore like that. Yeah. No, I think different for sure today. And there is so many more brands today, like high fashion, not high fashion. But I mean, at that time, probably it was more curated and we didn't have Instagram and everything as well. So we didn't have so many images from all over the world. It was more the message was maybe more focused in a way. And it's true that his show specifically were really, I don't know how you say in English, but everybody was waiting for it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was most anticipated, but it was just, yeah, it's so different now because everyone has their own little corner of the internet. And so you don't feel that same. Sometimes it happens, but it's less and less and less now. I've been thinking about it a lot in the context of the kind of Gucci relaunch, which I'm very excited about. But it's just never going to be like Alessandro at Gucci, the way that that like changed the whole world. That just doesn't happen. And I think the closest right now is Chanel. And I saw that a lot on the runways or Aliyah previously in New York. I always like what's happening in New York. And I could feel the last few seasons. I've definitely felt the Aliyah presence this season. I felt the Chanel. Like they took something from those shows and just like there's a new feeling in the air, but it's not as dictatorial as it once was. Yeah, yeah. I see what you mean. So when you launched your brand, what was your sort of idea around it? Because it was really focused on silver to start, correct? Yeah, it was like silver and vermeil, which is still dipped in gold. Yeah, I mean, the idea was it was a very personal, creative project. I didn't really have any idea of business or this becoming a business. I remember at that time I was doing a lot of freelance designer projects, basically focused on ready-to-wear. I was missing doing jewelry, complaining that I was not doing jewelry. So my friends were like, well, just do your own brand. Stop complaining. And it was like, oh, yeah, why not starting it? And at that time, I did an audition for a job of a jewelry designer at Dior that I didn't had. But for this job, I prepared, I trained, I did a book and I worked on the packaging and fake campaign and everything. And then because I didn't get the job, I was like, oh, I mean, the premise of a brand is already here because I had like a collection that was done for, you know, for this job. And I had like some fake edgery and I was like, maybe it's, you know, a good starting point on having my own brand. But once again, more on a very, like, what do I want to say in jewelry? I have to express myself and it's going to be with this medium. So yeah we launched the brand I mean I launched the brand by myself at the beginning and then it came really the welcoming was so warm The press was super super supportive The buyers were quite super supportive as well very early in the story of the brand So it became a business quite quickly without even like trying to do a business yeah I mean it's interesting because I remember when it launched and I was so excited because there isn't um it it looks like nothing else and there isn't a lot of jewelry for there for women who like sculptural or it's not minimalist but there it's just like your aesthetic There isn't, there's nothing like it. And it also just appeals to a very certain type of woman. And also the price was, was good. It's not, the prices aren't crazy. It feels really sophisticated, but it's also playful. And were you, were you into sculpture when you were younger? Like, did you practice sculpture? It's so sculptural. sculptural. Yes, I was into design, more sculptural, but I was into design before being into fashion, like being younger. And it's true that when I started jewelry at Balenciaga, I felt that jewelry was so close to, of course, fashion, but also very close to design. Regarding, I don't know, I find beauty very early in a spoon or in a teapot or, you know, so I was like, oh, actually, your jewelry can also have this like triple aspect of being an object when it's not worn, when it's on a table. So I really, really love this like 3D aspect of the object. And because I couldn't sketch properly my ideas, I started to mold it. So this is how I guess the DNA of the brand was anchored and was born. It's because I was doing in 3D what I couldn't sketch properly. Yeah, that's cool. I think what the result was that like it truly looked like nothing else. And but it was also so fit into the sort of way women were dressing at the time and has evolved with that as well. When you started with silver and the gold dip silver, why did you do that? Why not do platinum or do, you know. solid gold. Yeah. So I didn't want to do like brass because I was coming from fashion and this project was something different to me. I wanted something very timeless, not to do so many style. I really wanted like classical in a way pieces, like new classical pieces. So I thought it really deserved a noble material. So this is why I didn't go to brass. Of course, I thought about gold, but very quickly I realized I couldn't afford it because I was totally self-financial at that time. And I was like, yeah, I'm super happy also to do like silver and vermeil because I can wear it. My friend can buy it. My mother can buy it. You know, it was about like, I wanted to see these pieces on actual people. And it was super important for me. Can you explain a bit how the jewelry industry works? Because you mentioned you couldn't afford it because it you didn't have an you were self-funded it's extremely expensive to even make one collection of fine jewelry right so can you talk about like how how it's sold differently than ready to wear basically um you have three category if you want to be like you have like custom jewelry fashion jewelry most of them they are in brass or even different material but not noble material. So they can use resin, they can use like crystal. Most of them, they are in brass. So anything you will find almost in any fashion brand, you will be in brass or, you know, cousin of the brass. Then you go into like higher level, I would say, which is like silver. So silver, I don't know in America, but the low in France is considering silver as a precious material. So there's a mark on it. there is a you know you follow it there is rule and everything of course silver you can dip it in gold uh with a coat of five micron of gold 18 karat gold in france we call it vermeil in america you don't really have the equivalent because you you don't have a classification for this it also exists but i don't think you have this this name vermeil that is a very french appellation and then you go into gold. Gold, you have several levels of gold. You have 9 carat, 14 carat, 18 carat, 24 carat. In France, in Europe, all the Place Vendôme brands, they use 18 carat gold. We don't really use 9 or 14 here in Europe, barely, which is something you find more a bit in Asia and in America. But the classical fine jewelry brands, most of them, they are in 18 carat. The main difference, if I want to, I don't know exactly the price of a kilogram of brass, but it's quite low. Today, the price of a kilogram of silver is reaching 3000 euros. Just to give you an idea, it was only above 1000 euros six months ago. Oh my God. Yeah. Why has silver gone up so much? Different reason. The main reason is not linked to the crisis we are living now. It's mainly due to the use of silver in many batteries for electric cars, for example. Oh, wow. So the demand has increased, but in different ways. For jewelry, yeah. Wow. So basically, silver is still affordable, but still has triple in six months. and then you go to gold uh so gold uh when i started my brand you could buy so 10 years ago you could buy a kilo of gold sorry i speak in kilo but you could buy it no that's fine whatever it's people can figure it out 30 000 euro uh-huh then in july six months ago more more than six months ago you buy a kilo of gold 90 000 euro so triple but triple in 10 years but still triple yes and then today in six months due to like the world we live in now we almost reach almost 140 000 euro kilo in less than six months wow yes so nightmare it's a nightmare Go behind the scenes of one of TV's most watched true crime series with the 48 Hours Postmortem Podcast, where correspondents and producers take you inside each case. Every Monday, listen to a new episode of 48 Hours, and then join me, 48 Hours correspondent Anne-Marie Green, every Tuesday for a new episode of Postmortem. Follow and listen to 48 Hours on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. let's rewind back to that beginning and you had a lot of interest from buyers immediately i know fine jewelry they tend to do it's it's based on um you like operate a consignment right so like you make everything you pay for everything you send it to them they it sits in the store they take a commission if you sell it was your other jewelry when you started that was vermeil and silver were you on consignment for that as well or no that was a wholesale it was a yeah a simple wholesale business and I couldn't afford being on the consignment because basically consignment you you explain but you you sell the goods to the to the sellers and when they sell it you get paid so So if let's say you produce and you ship three months later and then it's getting sold six months later, it means for nine months you don't get paid. So this, it's an exercise that people can do. But at that time, I couldn't do it because I didn't have the money. So everything was based on like wholesale business. So you sell and then they sell, they resell. And it really helped my company to grow because people really play the game. and yeah wholesaler were buying and then i could launch my production and i don't have this you know financial like fluid to deal with uh regarding fine jewelry business it's a different way because of course it's much more expensive and it's a very uh it's a cash consumer so yeah most some i would say really depends on your connection with the wholesaler and your but also your track record but basically usually they're like yeah we love the collection we'd love to have it we want like i don't know 25 pieces of this and 10 of this and da da da oh by the way we are on the consignment term so it means i put all the money in it i invest my money in it i produce i send the pieces and eventually when you sell i get paid but this is a rule it's not a it's not the only rule it's it's it's usual it happens quite a lot yeah and you you decide to play the game or you don't decide to play the game it makes the barrier for entry in this market higher than in fashion super difficult this is why i waited 10 years to launch find jewelry as well and and so when you started and you got such amazing feedback what why do you think it hit so quickly So I remember when it launched and it was just like everybody wanted it immediately, like the rings and the earrings. And it was I feel like maybe it was sold at Dover Street in the US. And I it was just like immediately desirable. you know i i think um i think the things that really put the light on the on the project was also the fact that press was very curious about what the ex balance again studio were actually doing today so of course it helps a lot i remember the first article in the style.com ah do you remember who wrote it i i don't oh my god i should but i don't remember but i remember being on the first page like which i was nice twist because it was basically like every morning i was checking style.com and then i was on the first page and the title was like something like oh what x like jewelry designer from balenciaga nicolas is doing now yeah for sure it helps a lot and then regarding the the the desire of like the what the pieces like express i told i mean it's such a personal project that I really wanted these pieces to be I don't know they come from from my brand and I I try them on so much and I love them so much I really want to wear them myself so I guess this is why maybe it's it worked like this I'm not a jewelry lover originally I don't collect like vintage jewelry of course I like it but before launching my brand I was not wearing so many jewelry and I became part of myself um like another piece of clothes in the end and it's not that I have so many girls that contact me and they say like I never wore jewelry before or I'm not a jewelry girl but with you I want to have it I want to wear it and I can't explain this but um I think there's just not a lot on the market as someone who I feel that way I have very few pieces. And there's just not a lot on the market that feels, especially new stuff, that feels like my style. There's a few brands that I really connect with, including yours. But generally, it's either like a little cheesy or a little too feminine or it doesn't feel original and, and it's not, I don't know if we were sort of trained. I think now this generation is buying more jewelry but I also think curious what you think I written a lot about the sort of unbranded jewelry market versus the big brands And comparing it to fashion why are the big brands in jewelry so powerful? And do they make it harder for independent brands to sort of grow and become brand names, household names. I mean, to answer in a different way to your question, yes, it's hard. And I'm not even thinking about competing with them because we don't even play in the same courtyard. Yeah. I think to their jewelry, I really think it has a very, a lot of similarity with like car business. It's a sign of richness of who you belong to. Are you like the blue box at Tiffany? Are you the red box at Cartier? Do you have the love bracelet? Do you have this watch? Like what does it say about you? It's really about, it's a status. it's a social status to me like maybe in in fashion you can have this with a bag yeah but it's really like okay you have what car what kind of car do you have you have a family car you have a coupe you have a brake you know and i really feel like i'm talking for the big big big brand of jewelry today which are like quartier tiffany boucheron they are like I don't know, less than 10, they compete. I mean, the way I see is that it's really about, yeah, that the breast lead that costs like 5K and you can find it in any different brand. And it says about you, like, you're going to have one with diamond, with no diamond. Of course, we all think about the love, for example. So it's really more about who you belong to, like community, less than I believe a measurable buy. Yeah. And it also feels like because of the prices of the raw materials that like, there's also a thing where the luxury consumer believes that it's an investment versus buying a handbag that's not Hermes or Chanel that will go down in price. whereas like a piece of fine jewelry they think yeah it is you can you can re re-melt you can redo with gold and diamonds for example forever there's not like i don't know five time or six times that you can melt a ring a gold ring you can really re-melt it forever which you cannot do you cannot do it with any bag i mean i'm sorry but even a chanel bag you cannot like sell just the closure by itself in five years it's cost nothing yeah we cannot just sell the chain which you can do with a piece of jewelry you can you can just take back the diamond and just do another setting you can just like sell the gold that everyone is doing now for example a lot of people have gold or silver in their you know when they need money you actually can resell it super easily so it's true that it's kind of i mean it's the only piece of goods i think that you can buy and then resell and then redo forever. You don't do this with any other kind of object. No. What do you think about the change in the value of diamonds? Do you use any of the man-made diamonds? I don't. I only use it when I do like prototype because then it's allowing me to have a a nice uh you know a nice uh final view without buying immediately the diamonds so this is where i'm using it otherwise we don't but we have a personal uh like private project and people sometimes they ask for lab and i so i have a i have contact and i can sell lab the way i see lab today is a bit like you know if you are vegan and you go in a really nice restaurant i guess a good chef can provide a very nice vegan menu for you so i see it a bit like this like i'm not pro or against uh my my religion will lead me more to like natural diamonds yeah i have a customer who really want a project with lab i can do it yeah i don't have to wait for you know special order and everything yeah it's so interesting because the value of diamonds is such a kind of construct anyway so yeah yes yes so like but there is something that just i'm all i'm drawn to natural and and feel like i if i'm gonna spend i would like it to be the quote-unquote real thing even though i know that there's no difference but in the end we the diamond is selling a piece of dream yeah it's being a piece of i don't know like a piece of star from the sky it's a piece of dream that you can wear at your finger or at your ear if you know it's coming from a lab where is the dream so of course in the end everything is marketing because we know that the molecule is the same but it's just a story you buy and in the end i mean even if it's regarding a diamond that doesn't belong to any brand but it's when you buy to a brand you also buy the story that the brand is selling you yeah and it's the same for diamond and not diamond and lab and not lab diamond to me it's like what is it giving you as an emotion it's about emotion and what you feel about the project some people are totally cold about it and they don't care and they just want something sparkle with the good shininess and then they will go for lab and it's fine or some people will go for more like ecological reason of course but in the end it's really about what you feel and what the emotion what the pieces is really new. Why did you decide to launch Fine Jewelry? And when did you do it? In the last year? Yeah, so it was in the pipe for like three years, but because of like all this reason we mentioned, we took like times to understand like where we want to, like the pool we want to swim in and how much it's going to cost and everything. So we work on the collection for like three years. We released it last year. I was doing fine before, but really on the side. Disregarding like the rest of the collection, I was doing like one of a kind project. I had few, very few collections that I was just doing when I was, you know, oh, let's have this little drop at the store and everything. It was not really built. This collection is more like properly, like the official fine jewelry collection of the brand. I had it in mind for a very long time. also because I'm getting older and I want to wear more gold. I don't want to change my jewelry so often. So there's something about the extra juice of the brand. Like what if you just have to wear one ring or two ring instead of changing your ring every day? What would be this ring? And what would be this? Also, I love to work with archetype, like very classical pieces. So what would be your solitaire ring at Charles Chenet? what would be the the you know the pearl necklace like what would be the really pure shot like you know this ginger shot you got in the morning like that wakes you up what would be the essence of the brand if you had to work with only this material and going from a ring that weighed 30 gram to a ring that will weigh 8 gram because of course you cannot afford to go 30 gram I mean you could but you have to also understand the market where you work in. So basically, I was sketching before on a bigger format. And now I'm also challenging myself to be as creative, but on a much more smaller format. I don't know if it makes sense. Yeah, for sure. I think the sort of timelessness and the foreverness of that kind of thing is a different challenge for you as a designer. Yeah. Do you, when you were pricing it, because I was just scanning it, the prices are reasonable. I mean, the diamonds you're using are not giant, but it feels accessible to a woman who has a good job and likes to spend a little bit of money on herself or however you want to do it. How did you figure out the pricing given the extreme costs of the raw materials? Yes, it's a good question. We did a lot of like shopping, not actual shopping, but we looked at so many other brands. And like I said, in the end, if you deep dive a little bit, it's quite not easy to read, but you always end up by having, for example, we realized that every single brand we were benchmarking always used for the entry price a 0.3 cara and not a 0.4, not a 0.2. They all use a 0.3. So because initially I launched my ring with a 0.4 and then we always end up being a little bit too expensive. and then we realized that actually almost all of them were starting with this price because they had this size of of stone so pricing regarding fine is very linked to the amount of gold you use of course the amount of cara you use in the stone so it's kind of a a mix of design and mathematics in a way because you you always like for example i re-challenge my own design because it was too heavy in gold for example and i was like oh it's still too heavy and then it ends up being too expensive so we we we tried a lot uh re-sketching from like what maybe you wouldn't see with your eyes from option a to option i don't know m some sometimes for some option for some style but i i redesigned like some of the rings like i don't know maybe 15th time to find the proper ways but this was in july i mean before july and then for example in like last week we had some reorder to do and then we realized our price are not good anymore because the raw material is so different now so it's to be honest i'm learning now and i'm i'm talking to you of things that we are in we are in the middle of this and we are in the middle of how many time a year do you increase your price when you are in an independent brand because for example a big brand they what they do is that they buy gold in advance so they are not so sensitive to this uh increase and like i am yes not buying so much gold because i cannot for the moment yeah it's interesting i i heard from brooke nidick about this have you ever met her i feel like you would like each other. She's really cool. The owner of Sydney Garber jewelry, but, um, she mentioned to me a couple of years ago that essentially what they do a lot, the big brands often do with the factories. And I'm curious, I don't know enough about your supply chain, but I'm curious if your supply chain has been affected by this, that the big brands are so competitive that they essentially buy out the factories, even if they don't own them for like four years where she said there was a factory that she used in Italy forever and they were like we love you and we still want to work with you but they have like contracted us for our work for the next we're just going to make stuff for for the next four years for them how do you manage that that I'm sure being in Paris and like having such a understanding of the net network in Europe but how do you manage your supply chain stuff because it's the same kind of thing where the big brands can sort of just take over if they want to. I mean, this was another subject why it took three years. It was finding the good partners who want to play the game, who don't belong to Big House, because now a lot of my atelier I used to work with has been buy, bought, buy, Richemont, LVMH, Kering. Kering actually is not buying so much, but LVMH and Richemont they buy the atelier I think Caring just bought one though Oh maybe maybe Yeah for Boucheron It was like their main something like their main factory or something But yeah you totally right It's super, super difficult to find the good partner that will follow you, that will not drop you, that will be interested in making a young brand bloom. and it's funny like one of my supplier actually sold this company to a big group and then he sold it will not work anymore he's gonna retire because he sold this company super well and then after like few years he was bored and he was like i'm missing this my job again i want to go back i want to build my new atelier i really and so i'm working with him but because he's now independent again and he wants to keep it small and he wants to help like young designer and because he went through this big thing of selling to a big big company he's not into this anymore and hopefully for me there is still some people like this who are you know not everybody is dry is like drawn by like big big company hopefully yeah yeah no that's true i mean i think it's some certain rules that you have to play it's a certain reason it's so many constraints and not everybody wants to accept them. The other thing is I think that you are so strong as a designer that you can cut through all of that. Whereas there are so many people whose work, and this is in every industry and in fashion, in every category of fashion or jewelry or whatever, but your work is so clear And so people will will seek it out no matter what. And they'll figure out the pricing because it's it was so strong from the beginning that that is really I mean, it's the greatest example of like talent does matter because sometimes it feels like a friend of mine who you probably know who is based in Paris was messaging me about a designer in New York, not really understanding why that this designer is so successful. And I was trying to explain it. And I think it's like, without naming either of these people, it's an American thing. But the point being that like there are, I think the frustration is there just are so many brands and so many ideas. Like how do you really break through? And I think your clarity of who you are, all this pain in the ass stuff you can deal with. because like someone will come to Charlotte Cheney for Charlotte Cheney. You can't get that anywhere else. You can't get it with the junkie knockoffs of the alphabet rings or whatever. Like it's only you. And that's like impossible to do. So that, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's super. I mean, thank you so much for your words first. And yeah, you know, we got so many copies in the past 10 years from like bigger brands, smaller brands. And it's hard. It's really hard in many different ways to develop like fine recently, to develop, to be self-financial, to being a mom at the same time. I mean, it's a tough, it's a tough job. I'm doing many sacrifices. I'm not seeing my friends so often, not seeing my kids so often. And in the end, I still believe it's worth it. Because, I don't know, I still have this fire inside me that I strongly believe in my design. And not being pretentious, but I still believe it's really worth it. And yeah, but at the same time, you still need to have an advance because you have so many copies. And it's true that what you said, that finding the proper partner, for example, I can feel that some of them are very excited by the funny person that I am, maybe. and the crazy person that I am and things that I ask that are not possible, but in the end, they are possible. And yeah, of course, in the story of the brand for the past 10 years, the key people are the people who accept the challenge to work with us, to develop with us, to grow with us. And this would not, I mean, I would be nothing without them. And so my atelier is really people I cherish a lot and the relationship I have with them And I mean, it's key to find a good person. And it's true that when we decided to launch Fine, it was a long process to identify the good partners. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. And it does also speak to sort of a European sensibility, which is to me is like it's not all just about making money. Like the money comes after. Yes. Which is in America. It's not like that. It's a different project. You know, I identify my project that is not a money project. It brings money eventually and it's great. But if I wanted to have a money project, I would not be doing this. I would be doing something different. Today, I designed for other brands and they asked me for a super commercial collection. And I know how to do this commercial collection. But this is not where I have this fire that I'm talking about. Do you ever consult on jewelry or is it usually different categories? No, I do consult on jewelry. I used to do it a lot in the past. Maybe I think I wouldn't do it so easy today because I'm trying to exist as a jewelry brand. So it's like sometimes I got some big brands asking me to design some collection and it's kind of like tricky for me to give them a part of me in a way. and being my direct competitor. So it's easier for me to work on projects that are very far from my DNA and far from the universe where I am. So our mutual friend Delphine Delval, speaking of sort of your DNA and how it applies to other categories, her question for you was like, what did she say? She said, I want to know what designer she buys. What feels as hot as her jewelry? And then asked me a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with you but um but what what are what are you into fashion wise right now i don't buy that much yeah i like your where's your shirt from yeah it's from mato oh it's super nice yeah i love it i mean to be totally transparent i work for brands that give me a lot of clothes so it's true that it's nourishing my you know my shopping addiction because I so I'm I'm getting a lot of clothes I'm also getting a lot of clothes from other brands that are kind enough to give me some clothes and then after that I just want to have vintage like so basically I'm I'm I'm I'm Buying, I don't know how to say. I think because I'm in the industry for 21 years, I'm not so, I understand the industry and it's feeding me and it's great to be inside. But as a consumer point of view, I'm less excited. Yeah. I'm having like really archetype clothes, like good denim, good shorts, good leather, good knitwear, like men's shoes most of the time. I don't buy that much. Have you found vintage shopping in Paris to become more challenging as it's sort of the first stop for a lot of people there? I see what you mean. Yes, sure. I buy less vintage in Paris. I do buy a lot online. Like we have this really good thing in France called vintage. oh vintage yes yeah when you be in france i give you like few can't wait few lessons but you can find like thank you really really crazy thing for not so expensive uh i i travel a lot in japan because i have a store there and vintage cool it's great um but yeah in the end i don't buy that much i borrow a lot to my boyfriend like the good shirt and everything we almost we share a lot and yeah when I need a really beautiful dress for an event I'm good friend with some brands so I will call Alaya and I will borrow dress at Alaya for dinner because I don't need to own them yeah I get it I don't need to own all these pieces so I'm super lucky that I can borrow them when I need yes And yeah, I mean, recently I'm quite excited by the new Chanel. Eventually, I, you know, I'm very curious to see what it will give in store. Not that, it doesn't mean I'm going to be a customer, but you know, it's kind of exciting. It's exciting me. I really love also the work of Michael at Céline because he's a friend. We work together. Super great. Yeah. And it's quite desirable, I have to say. Like for somebody who don't buy clothes, he wants to make me buy clothes. it's it's so great to hear that because I felt it at Couture talking to French people who are like I only buy vintage I don't buy any of this stuff that you silly Americans buy and but everyone was like I want to like my friend who who works in who's a marketer who always like embodies the brand that he works for was like I want to go work at Celine and it was like wow it's it's um it's amazing to see that this american guy i know that he has mostly worked with you all in europe and has like a is super sophisticated but it's amazing to see it that like the really discerning french and italians are into it i i'm very proud he has a very good understanding of the european market and it has a very strong culture also of like french fashion house. But it has this very clever merchandising vision that is more American. Yeah. Well, yeah, no, I'm very, I'm very happy that pieces are arriving in store and I'm looking at it online and we'll see. It's exciting. I know I want to get a shirt. So I guess the last question for you is what are you thinking it has? Like, what are you design wise? What are some of the sort of things in your mind as you, I'm assuming you're working on a collection right now? I am. It's funny because I'm so I'm working on jewelry because now the company is based on the jewelry business. We have stores and people come from this. They come for this, sorry. But I'm also really into like exploring a bit more sculptural pieces that maybe could have a different purpose, such as just piece of art. Or I just released last year this Christoph's collaboration where I did some cutlery. so that's cool yeah I always make sure that you know I need to fit the best that the brand has became as you know the jewelry business and everything but I want to make sure that I always have kind of a a spare a spare spot like a carte blanche on the side where I can make sure I can still stimulate my brain because in the end any craftsmanship that I have in my hand not any but lost of them, I can get excited about and maybe want to create something different depending on the material I'm having and everything. So I'm still trying to be very curious on the side and to see how it can become something, even if it's not a commercial business, but just exploring. Well, we're so lucky that we have access to your mind. Charlotte, thank you so much for being here. This was so fun. And I'm excited to see you in Paris. Oh, first. When do you arrive? March 1st. Oh, wow. Okay. In two weeks. Yeah, I'm around for many months. So we'll hang. Of course. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. It was so great. Me too. Bye. Fashion People is a presentation of Odyssey in partnership with Puck. This show was produced and edited by Molly Nugent. Special thanks to our executive producers, Puck co-founder John Kelly, executive editor Ben Landy, and director of editorial operations, Gabi Grossman. An additional thanks to the team at Odyssey, J.D. Crowley, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Bob Tabador.
