City Portraits

To bring the Blend Energy collection to life, we sought out people from Nantes whom we admire. Talented individuals, each in their own field, who have made their daily lives a territory.

We asked them one simple question: How is the city you live in a source of energy for you? Not the city of postcards. The real one, early in the morning when everything is still hazy, the snatched conversations, the clattering noise that becomes a rhythm from living there.

Youtchen, the one who keeps Madeleine Café running.

Behind a counter, you see everything. The regulars who settle in without a word, the newcomers who hesitate, the neighborhood changing before your eyes. Youtchen, he stays. He experiences the city by bike, in the morning at the Talensac market, early, before the crowd, to appreciate the colors of the stalls that change with the seasons. A habit that reminds him of Taiwan's night markets. In the evening, at dusk, it's by the river when the last rays skim the Erdre and the terraces overflow that Youtchen likes to slow down.

Margot works with what nature offers.

In her shop in the République district of Nantes, Margot defines herself as an atypical artisan florist. She conceives each composition as a response to the season, to the light, to what people come looking for without always knowing how to express it.

She works with what grows slowly, what requires time and attention. And that's why she loves the city, for this contrast, this tension between the hustle and bustle outside and the silence she creates inside with her hands. To breathe and recharge, she often goes up to Butte Sainte-Anne, just a stone's throw from her home, with all of Nantes and its effervescence below.

"The city feeds me with its energy, and the flowers remind me that everything grows at its own pace."

Benjamin, an atypical figure in skateboarding

From the long descent of Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau from the Opéra Graslin, to the bowl of the Vincent Gâche skatepark, under a blazing sun. This fifty-year-old, passionate about photography and of Belgian origin, reads the city differently, with its obstacles, its lines, its windows of momentum. For him, the streets are not a backdrop, they are a playground.

Born deaf, Benjamin has built an entirely visual relationship with the world. He receives the city through his eyes. The light especially, the walls, the faces, the street art he encounters without having to search. He finds his energy on the banks of the river, in an empty café, in a bookstore, on a spot. Places to look, observe, and exist in silence.

"Early in the morning, when everything begins: the cafés, the delivery people, the still-sleepy people... That's the time when the city still belongs to those who make it."

Like our three daily portraits, urban energy does not have a single face. This is precisely what we wanted to convey with our new Blend Energy collection. Discover it without further ado.

Photographs: Nina Ducleux