Behind Léo et Violette are Léo Dominguez and Violette Polchi, a duo who have been inseparable for eight years. Together, they have founded a brand of bags with a refined style and quality materials. Self-taught, they were still students when they created the brand. With over two thousand products sold in 2017 in France and abroad, they are now a real success.
Violette, an opera singer by profession, doesn't work for the brand on a daily basis. We meet Léo in their studio at 12 rue Saint-Anne, Paris.
Hello Leo! Can you introduce yourself?
I'm Léo, co-founder of the Léo et Violette brand, and I'm 28. We created the brand almost 5 years ago now, when we were both 22 and 23. The brand was created through a participatory financing project: Kickstarter.
The original idea was to create a single-product brand: a briefcase designed to hold a computer, tablet and smartphone. We wanted to make a well-crafted, high-quality product. The idea was to make a sober, uncluttered product, without monograms or logos. We first sold it direct to the consumer on the kickstarter site, then later on our website.
The two of us are not at all in the fashion business.
Can you tell me a little about your background? Your respective studies?
I went to business school, which I finished in 2015, and Violette has an artistic background: she's an opera singer. That's her job. She doesn't work at Léo et Violette on a daily basis. We've been in the fashion world for a while, thanks to her mother, who was head of pattern-making at a fashion school.
But we didn't study fashion. Violette is the one of us who's artistically inclined. She's in charge of drawing the models and all the artistic direction of the project, whether it's photos, videos or the designs we send to our manufacturers.
How did your studies help you create your fashion company?
Firstly, there's a very down-to-earth aspect that my studies have enabled me to consider, whether it's setting up a marketing strategy for certain tools, or knowing how to analyze a market. My background is in digital marketing, so I'm very familiar with all current communication strategies.
Being in class at the same time as launching a project is very interesting. I was learning what my teachers were teaching me and trying to apply it to my own project. And then there's the fact that by studying, you can already create your first network. There were four thousand students at my school. So four thousand potential customers. I sent out promotional e-mails on my school's intranet to publicize the brand.
How did you come up with the idea for Léo et Violette?
It came from a need. At the time, we were both looking for a satchel with a slightly vintage feel. A retro spirit that could be worn as a backpack. We wanted to adapt it and asked ourselves what people put in a schoolbag today. The answer was a computer, a charger and a tablet. And at the time, binders weren't designed for that.
So we decided to modernize these models, adding compartments, linings, pockets, working with other materials, colors and so on. We also wanted it to be adaptable, so that it could be worn as both a handbag and a backpack. That's when we discovered Kickstarter which was the perfect way to test a project.
So you were able to create Léo et Violette entirely by crowdfunding?
Absolutely. We'd never sold a product before Kickstarter. We really started this project with just one product. Our idea was simple: before trying to create a brand, let's try to create a product we like. If we like the product, maybe we can consider developing a collection. That's how the project began. Kickstarter in 2013.
Right from the start, we had a lot of orders, almost 160 in one month. That was almost sixty thousand dollars' worth of orders, well above what we'd set ourselves at the outset. Without Kickstarterwe wouldn't be here today. It was - and still is - a calling card to introduce the brand. To say that we started with this is both rewarding and reassuring for our customers. The creation of Léo and Violette is not linked to outside investors, but to people who believed in the project.
What type of customers do you have?
It's mainly French. 80% of our products are sold in France. They are young urbanites, between 25 and 35/40 years old. Our customers are people who look like us. We make products that we like, that we want to be the first to use. So it seems logical that our customers should look like us.
Paris is by far the city where we sell the most of our products. Today, we sell 65% of our bags to women. Originally, it was the other way around. We started by making a range of unisex products, selling much more to men. And then from 2015/2016, we started making handbags, products designed exclusively for women. From then on, the brand experienced strong growth.
Can you tell me a little more about your international clientele?
Twenty percent of our products are sold outside France. In first place is the UK, in second place China. The brand's success in China is very interesting for us. In fact, a Chinese blogger started talking about our products, and we've had quite a few articles published on Chinese websites.
A snowball effect followed: more and more Chinese were talking about our bags or taking photos of themselves with them. Today, we regularly have Chinese customers visiting our studio. These are mainly Chinese students from the major European and American universities.
These meetings made us want to work with them. In fact, a few days ago, I went to China to possibly work with a company that would like to distribute our products on the Chinese market. I think they now want to turn to brands that are perhaps less well-known than Louis Vuitton or Dior. They still have a taste for French craftsmanship, but they're getting closer and closer to emerging brands that aren't necessarily seen on the street.
Why did you choose e-commerce in the first place?
Because it's the only way to bypass all the middlemen, and offer a product that's very well made, of high quality, and sold at an affordable price. If we enter into a distribution logic, then we have to deal with the margins of intermediaries, agents, retailers...
We wanted to be the first consumers of our products, and we decided that we couldn't afford a schoolbag costing over three hundred euros. So to sell a quality product at that price, there was no other solution than to sell direct.
So why did you decide to open a studio?
It was a necessity in response to customer demand. In fact, opening a store doesn't change the system. We remain the sole distributors of our products. We've done a lot of pop-up stores, and every time, we've had extremely positive feedback: customers liked to see the quality of the products, the materials, the colors, the different sizes, and so on.
Not having a permanent location can create more frustration than anything else. We wanted to create a place that could be both our offices, and at the same time a retail outlet where to showcase products on a permanent basis. We opened the studio in July 2017.
You have a single manufacturer in Italy. Can you explain this choice?
That's where we found the best compromise between quality and quantity, which is very important when you're a young brand. It's rare to find a manufacturer who's willing to create quantities that aren't huge. Our manufacturer is great, and we've built up a very strong relationship. Léo and Violette is its biggest customer.
As novices, how did you go about taking the first steps towards creating your fashion brand?
We used Violette's mother's network, who knew people who could help and advise us. But the best way is to look on the internet, on your own. Just by typing "paris leather supplier" on the internet, you'll find interesting people who can give you advice, or point you in the direction of other people who can tell you about other people and so on.
It's like conducting an investigation! What's important to know is that, at the time, we were students, so we had time on our hands and weren't in a hurry to find suppliers. It took over six months to find the right suppliers. I can understand that when you start a brand, it can be quite a long and frustrating process. For us, there was no frustration in this slowness, because we weren't in a hurry.
Today, Léo and Violette hires how many people?
Four. A store manager, a community manager, a logistics manager and a production manager, who takes care of links with suppliers and manufacturers.
What difficulties did you encounter at the start of the project?
The biggest difficulty is defining your project, trying to be precise about what you want to do. When you have a blank page in front of you, you can do so many things, you can create different product styles... What's very difficult is to define the true identity of the product and the brand as a whole. You have to be fairly concrete, and find a guideline that lasts.
In fact, customers need consistency, they need to be attached to a story, and not have things change every three months. At the beginning, you're jumping into a bit of a void, because you don't know what customers will like, or how they'll react. You have to have confidence in your idea and tell yourself that it's going to take time. Launching a fashion brand requires patience, and not looking too far ahead.
What starting strategy did you decide to adopt?
Above all, we wanted to be transparent. Right from the start, we established common values for the way we communicate and talk about our brand. We decided to communicate extensively on manufacturing, transparency around materials, and then also, the choice to communicate about ourselves, to put ourselves forward, to tell who Léo and Violette are.
Five years on, this is still the case, and we spend a lot of time explaining the behind-the-scenes story behind the creation of the brand. In fact, right from the start, we sensed that customers valued this closeness, this transparency about our history.
Did you use the press and social networks to promote yourself after your success on Kickstarter ?
When the brand was created, it was the golden age of Instagram for professionals like us. The posts we made were widely seen and commented on, and there weren't as many brands as there are today. We used these tools very early on. Our followers then became our customers.
At that point, we organized events, and much later, we approached the press. We used press agencies. However, my advice would be not to try and get press coverage from the outset - it's virtually impossible and very expensive.
It's best to start by developing your own network, then expand it with good communication on Instagram and Facebook, which are free tools. Once things are well established, it's much easier to go to the press.
Do you realize how important Instagram is to your sales?
Yes, because it's the #1 source of product discovery Léo and Violette. Everyone who discovers the brand does so through the prism of Instagram or Facebook. But these days, there are so many people on Instagram that the competition is very stiff, and it's hard to stand out from the crowd.
Either you have to pay a lot of money for your posts to be seen more and more, or you have to create content of immeasurable quality, originality and responsiveness... in short, criteria that are very difficult to meet. Nonetheless, at present, there's really no other tool for distributing a brand.
Instagram is our number one source of communication. They've integrated lots of tools to simplify product visibility and purchase, like the price directly displayed on the photo etc.
Any top tips for students reading this?
Have confidence in your project. I always assume that if someone has an idea, they're not the only one to have had it. You have to be precise in what you want, and defend it body and soul, for a long time. You mustn't get discouraged at the beginning, because things take a long time.
You also have to be ready to work, a lot. Launching a project is like launching a life. No one will do things for you. You have to be prepared to do the accounting, deal with suppliers, communicate... It's very demanding, but also very exciting, and above all very gratifying, because when it works, it's only thanks to you.
Any plans for the future?
Yes, on Thursday we'll be launching our small leather goods range. This is a major project for us, and we've been working on it for six months. We'll be launching thirty new items next year. Violette and I would also very much like to develop the brand by opening other locations, and expanding abroad.
If you want even more advice on how to launch your own brand, read our article on how to launch your fashion brand in 5 essential questions.
