Trésors Publics
French-made objects in Nice

What led you to start this project?

Nicolas: It was born out of a desire to change careers, to do something different in life. Antoine, my husband, came up with the idea of creating this shop about ten years ago. After a trip to Lisbon, Portugal, we discovered a shop that revalued the quality of Portuguese manufactured goods. So, in 2017, he opened the shop and I joined him after a career change. Then the project grew, it worked well, so we both stayed and continued to work together. The idea was also to create a souvenir shop, that would appeal to everyone, but with genuine products made in France, focused on heritage and historic brands. We've always loved beautiful things, beautiful products. And everything was built up little by little, over time.

What challenges did you face when starting the project?

Nicolas: As with any business, and even more so when you're a couple, you have to learn to work together. The main difficulty is sourcing: finding the right products and the right manufacturers takes a lot of time. Every year, we spend a month traveling around France to meet with artisans. Today, we have about 1,000 items in our store and nearly 350 suppliers. The difficulty is juggling all of this: following up with partners, placing orders, tracking deliveries, not to mention the products developed exclusively for us, which require even more time.

Photography credits: Repose Studio.

Repose Archive is a creative direction journal documenting processes and projects across art, design, architecture, and hospitality.