Inès Bressand Studio
September 6th
︎︎︎ October 11th, 2025
At the end of summer. With memories of sand beneath our feet and the scorching heat of pebbles. Far from the sea air and mountain air. We wanted to prolong this often happy but now over period a little longer. Straw, fabrics, leather. That's about it, but it's enough to invent a range of shapes. Inès Bressand. That's her name. Perhaps unknown or almost unknown in the field of design, but not completely unknown in the fashion world. Inès Bressand has been making a name for herself for several years now, designing straw and leather bags. It may seem like a modest venture, but it is essential. Carrying, taking away, transporting, bringing back. None of this can be done without a container. So you might as well do it well, which is what Inès Bressand does, and with elegance.
However, at A1043, it's not about the bags, which live their lives without us. Inès Bressand trained as an object and textile designer at La Martinière in Lyon and then at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. It is her production of fashion accessories that has made her famous, yet they would not exist without her research and experimentation. This is where we come in. We like this research work and find it compelling. It reminds us of the early works of Barry Flanagan. Flanagan commonly used cotton and jute canvas. This is not the case with Inès Bressand. Yet there is a Flanaganesque aspect to her work. Is it because the shapes are created naturally by the materials themselves? Or is it a desire not to invent too much? To stay within limits? To follow the possibilities of a material without trying to transform it completely, just by constraining it a little, almost gently but firmly.
Inès Bressand herself says: "What fascinates me is the way humanity has developed archetypes of forms and materials common to almost all cultures, thus constructing a set of indispensable objects that define us. " Although she hesitated to pursue a career as a sculptor, it is this relationship with sculpture that characterizes her work. Let's start at the beginning: Inès Bressand works with raw materials. We have listed a few of them, to which we can add wool, for example. Beyond the forms, we could say that her primary source of wonder comes from these materials, unless perhaps it is nature itself? There is no need to go into detail, but Inès Bressand is a walker, a cyclist, someone who spends time in nature and is completely attuned to it. However, Inès Bressand is not simply someone who observes, feels, and receives emotions. That would be forgetting that she is also someone who is determined and has a certain strength of character. So we come back to the materials and how they are used. While Inès Bressand's bags are made in Ghana, she also has a workshop and participates in residencies that allow her to experiment with different materials, such as soap a few years ago in Marseille. It is therefore this combination of materials and implementation, as well as her relationship with forms and use, that is important. This equation, which is often unique to each designer, finds a particular quality in Inès Bressand because it is often done in collaboration with others. We have already mentioned workshops in Ghana, but we can also mention the upholsterer Rémi Marilleau, with whom she has created a series of works using the technique of quilting. With Inès Bressand, there are no recipes, only human, geographical, and material experiments. She says, "I like to examine all these ingredients from my own perspective in order to make them precious with delicacy. My creations are designed for everyday use. They seek to highlight the effectiveness of simple materials, worked with care and for the long term, using minimalist ingenuity within a sculptural vocabulary. Whether I'm creating a piece of furniture or a bag, the process is the same." Inès Bressand loves nature, materials, simple designs, and obvious forms. The reason? Because isn't the essential thing the connection between what we carry, what allows us to do so, where we come from and where we are going? Inès Bressand produces both objects and moments. At the beach, in the forest, in the mountains, alone or in company, at home and everywhere else.
