Ten years in the past, Anthony Watson and Benoît Rauzy purchased an 18th-century city home on the Rhône River within the Provençal village of Vallabrègues. The invention that their place as soon as figured in a flourishing-but-now-nearly-extinct native wicker business led the couple in a shock course. With out experience or a marketing strategy—Watson was previously a stylist and Rauzy an energy-use marketing consultant—the 2 launched Atelier Vime, devoted to creating high-style wicker furnishings from Rhône reeds and to providing selection examples from the previous.
Watson and Rauzy additionally went on to provide beautiful settings for his or her creations: their newly shored-up Vallabrègues base served because the preliminary showcase for Atelier Vime—see Rattan Revival—and was so well-received that they acquired the 18th century home subsequent door and turned it into France’s loveliest summer season emporium. Lately, they’ve additionally revived a Normandy farmhouse and Rauzy’s household compound in Brittany.
Their wickerwork and historic home renovations are celebrated in The World of Atelier Vime, out there in French and English editions. It consists of the duo’s Paris quarters, which was Rauzy’s childhood house. He and Watson have masterfully preserved its many highlights whereas additionally including their very own imprint—and no scarcity of wicker.
Pictures by Anthony Watson and Yvan Moreau, as credited, all courtesy of Flammarion.
Rauzy and Watson create Vime’s unique designs with their good friend Raphaëlle Hanley and so they work with French artisans. “There have been 15,000 basketmakers working within the Nineteen Fifties [in France], whereas immediately there are solely round 100,” writes Rauzy bemoaning the lack of abilities and tradition. “Our designs have shaken up an business that’s primarily targeted on creating baskets for sensible makes use of, and so they typically push craftspeople to the bounds of their experience.” {Photograph} by Anthony Watson.
