LEO ET VIOLETTE FOUNDERS INTERVIEW

Can you explain in a few sentences what Leo et Violette is?

Leo: Leo et Violette's story is ours. We are Léo Dominguez & Violette Polchi. Two Parisian lovers sharing our life for more than 8 years. Ever since we met, we always had the dream to develop a project together. By creating Le petit cartable in January 2013, we started to realize this dream.

Why did you start this business?

Violette: The main idea behind this project is to try to solve a problem that we have : for years we've been looking for an elegant, stylish and functionnal bag to carry our daily devices (MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, accessories...). We were looking for a bag that we would be proud to wear. A bag that we could take for a meeting , a class or just a walk in Paris...

Leo: And after hours of research we realized that the market of this kind of bag was divided in 2 parts :

• really high quality bags (some of them in leather), beautiful design but not adapted to our devices (no protections, pockets are too large, can only fit one product, no room for accessories...)
• OR poor quality bag, poor design but really well thought for devices (protections, fit perfectly your devices, place for chargers , adapters...). All this time spent on searching the perfect bag helped us realized what we truly love. 

What is your everyday process for creating new bags people will love

Leo: To keep total control of our products, we are the only producers and distributors. 3 steps are mandatory to create the perfect bag:

1. Creation: all the creative development of Leo and Violette is imagined in our Parisian office. Remaining independent allows us to keep full control over the creation. Thanks to this, we can respond better and faster to your expectations
2. Production: 100% made in Italy. With love. All of our goods are manufactured by the same Napolitan production workshop. Working throughout the year with the same craftsmen and the same materials will guarantee you an optimal quality
3. Distribution: no intermediaries and no wholesalers. So no excessive margins. It's just between you and us. And this is what allows us to offer you a quality product at an affordable price.

What’s the biggest challenge facing Leo et Violette right now?

Violette: We’re trying to keep up with demand.

We’ve been out of stock for 9 of the last 12 months and some of our customers have waited 6 months for their bags. We’re working on scaling our supply chain and making it more efficient so that we can reduce wait times — which has been challenging as we haven’t taken on any additional investment. We’ve been running off our revenue since day 1.

What’s next for Leo et Violette?

Leo: We want to expand into a number of different categories, always with the same objective of creating beautiful, well-designed products that are timeless in both design and craft.

We’re launching in category #2 in a few weeks. We’re super pumped for it – we think it’ll be massive. If you want to know more, sign up to our newsletter on our site.