This Sunday, April 2, the European Days of Crafts come to an end. This year, the JEMAs were held on the theme of “sublimating everyday life”. We went to meet Samuel Gassmann, designer, creator and craftsman, specialist in cufflinks since 2009 in the heart of Paris.
Samuel Gassmann opens his boutique workshop during these European days of crafts in order to make known his craft and his locally made production. For this craftsman in love with discreet luxury, the smallest accessory in the men’s wardrobe is a means of expression much more than a fashion accessory.
I love to conceptualize, to write and so it always or very often starts with too many ideas, a theme, of course, and then how am I going to get there? What types of objects will I be able to make?
Samuel Gassmann : “ My particularity is the cufflink. I’ve been creating them since 2009, I do two collections a year, like a clothing designer, I present a spring/summer collection, an autumn/winter collection. What sets me apart from other designers is that I produce everything. I have this double hat: I present my collections during fashion week and I also have the pleasure of showing my work and opening my workshop during the European days of crafts. »
Born in Paris in a bourgeois family, artistic parents, one in photography, the other in painting, Samuel Gassman is a true Parisian. After studying art history at the Sorbonne for more than a decade, he became an exhibition curator and journalist. It was the chance of a documentary on the smallest element of the male wardrobe that led him to film the production of shirt buttons, which led him to the creation of cufflinks. He doesn’t wear one, doesn’t know anyone who wears one, but for fun, he’ll make some. A bit like a game. Self-taught, Samuel Gassmann launches his eponymous workshop in 2009. It offers jewelry for men, alliance or key ring but especially cufflinks. This specialist, designer, creator and craftsman needs his collections to be organized.
“ All my collections are structured in five temporalities: for the morning, the day, the evening, the pageantry and the sport. It is a constraint that I need to express myself. There are people who are going to buy me cufflinks for their wedding, which I thought of for the morning. For example, I used bone with gold leaf, bone, ossuaries, it tells about intimacy, what is inside, at home, so neglected clothing. It’s thought processes. When I created my first collection, I was immediately spotted because no one made cufflinks. A cufflink, accessible and elegant, that no longer existed.»
The material that Samuel Gassmann prefers to use is obvious, the mother-of-pearl that reminds him of the shirt buttons with which it all began: “ Mother-of-pearl, I use it for every day and all circumstances. A person who wears cufflinks made of mother-of-pearl, for me, this allows this person to wear something that is going to be discreet and therefore elegant. It will evoke the shirt button and not a jewel. It goes on the side of discreet luxury and not ostentatious. This notion of discreet luxury is very important. »
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