Véronique Renard

Tell us about your job

I am an artisan, a jewellery designer. I created my brand about 20 years ago. It was Martine and Armand Hadida (from L'Eclaireur) who got me started. They believed in me! I am self-taught, which caused me to make a few mistakes, but it also gave me a lot of freedom.

Like in most professions, you may find the excitement of creation but also the disappointment; the magic of seeing the object exist but also the tiredness. It is all these mixed feelings that build us. The first years I only thought about my work, I was a quite self centred. However, with time and the certainty of having achieved something good, I opened up to people and to everything around me.

I regularly ask for the participation of other craftmen to create parts of my jewellery such as glass, ceramics. Illustrators have also decorated boxes for my jewellery. I am loyal to them and to the friendships that have been created along the way. It also allows me to get out of the loneliness that can come out of this job.

What material do you prefer to work with?

The one I will work on tomorrow. It's a bit exaggerated but it's true, I love discovering materials.

However, I don't know how to work with synthetic, industrial, very technical or too perfect materials. It's not that I don't like them, on the contrary, it's that they are out of my universe.

As an artist, I have the need to use natural materials with weight, irregularities, alterations that may give patina to the object... The material at the base of my pieces is bronze. Today we often confuse gilded brass and bronze. Bronze is an alloy used for sculpture. A very strong metal but very hard to work with. It is cast in a foundry. It cannot be stamped like brass, silver… It’s not possible to make extra thin and light pieces with bronze. Bronze always has a weight, it gives it quality.

What are your sources of inspiration?

It couldn't be simpler. No concept, formal research, style research...

I walk around, I see something that provokes an emotion in me and I appropriate it.

It can be a little tomato or the Big Dipper in the sky... There is no hierarchy in my emotions. I feed on everyday life, on simple poetics. For me the jewel is not a complement of beauty, it has its own existence. It is an object in its own right. You can carry it as you can hang it on a wall. Its primary function is not seduction. I also have a conception of the beauty of women that is far removed from stereotypes. For me, beauty and sensuality come more through gestures. The way the person moves their body.

For the 20th anniversary of your brand, you chose a bellflower, why?

I wanted to mark the event, so I chose a flower that grows at the same time of the year as the beginning of my activity : a spring flower, he bellflower, to symbolize delicacy, fragility.

Why did you adopt the Mont Saint Michel jacket?

It was its fabric, the moleskin that first attracted me. It is a fabric that acquires a patina over time much like natural leather. It must be said that I did Arts Deco in the textile section, that explains my keen eye! Also, if we go into details you may realize that it is not too wide and that the sleeves are very long, which gives it elegance.

Your favourite colour?

I have the jacket number “862” with my name on it, in Blue, but if I had to choose another one today I would take the gray one. I find that the satin of the fabric gives it a pearly appearance, it is very luminous.

Your favorite pieces from the winter collection?

The Gadda cardigan and the vareuse (the latest one that I wish had an extended colour range). First of all, the Gadda because it has a very « personal » fit, it is loose, tightened at the bottom and quite short with two large patch pockets on the front, in other words a characteristic and practical cut. The best part of it is the patch of different knitting techniques points, and I have to admit that Le Mont Saint Michel knows how to do this very well. For me, the strength of this brand is the work jacket with its unrivalled material, coming in an incredible range of colours and the work of the stitches. This is how you make the best out of your roots.