The ledger

Since 2017 every garment we sell is entered into a repair ledger — a physical book, kept at the Paris flagship, in which each mend is recorded by hand: date, fabric, thread, and the name of the person who did the work. The coat in question occupies half a page already.

“We darned it in a thread one shade off, so the years would show. A garment that hides its history has none.”

Visible mending as policy

A repair can be invisible or it can be honest; it can rarely be both. We choose honesty. The darn sits a half-tone lighter than the ground cloth, a quiet record of use. Customers have started requesting the contrast deliberately — which may be the most encouraging thing to happen to this house in years.

The coat went back to its owner on a Thursday, with the elbow reinforced and the ledger updated. We expect to see it again around 2029. The appointment is, in a sense, already made.