The spirit of Lightness

On a hot Summer day, Michel Maignan invited us into a new world: the world of Duvelleroy.

In a country house attic, he had kept the archives of this once world-famous Parisian Hand-fan Maison. Pleating molds, feathers, original drawings, letters from official prize juries, sequins and ribbons, photographs of the first boutiques, bird and frou-frou hand-fans: everything was impeccable.

At this very moment, we had the intuition that hand-fans could come back and be relevant in our modern world. Faith led us to discover this ever so fragile hidden treasure miraculously kept safe since 1827, we had to plunge into the adventure. A few days later, we cancelled all our other plans, to begin a crazy journey: awakening a fanmaker house in 2010.

Why ?

First, the compelling need to take lightness seriously.

Bringing our heads up in the clouds to refresh the mind. Allowing ourselves to disconnect and use our hands for something else than scrawling on screens. And thus, rediscovering a space to connect to one another, playing and flirting as we, Parisians, know how to.

Second, the appreciation of fine crafted work.

To reach this lightness, one must have feet grounded, relying on exceptional savoir-faire. At Duvelleroy, each hand-fan is hand-made, in Spain or in France, by craftsmen/women with life-long experience.

And last, because a hand-fan is a singular object, carrying history and meaning.

It perpetuates a rare and marvelous craft, a certain vision of life. 

Offering a Duvelleroy hand-fan as a present is something.

So, we made this wild wish that other wild minds would share our dream, and make it happen.