Design for one, s’il vous plait
Pamela Dherbey is tall, stunning, French, and a badass entrepreneur. She drives exclusively Jeep and has a 16-month old baby girl named Joss. We first met in 2010 when she was teaching me how to pop champagne for Ladies’ Night while we both worked at a bar in Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, Pamela has started her own leather goods business which can best be described only as “Ooh La La”. (Sorry, had to).
Ana (Design Toast): I think it was about a year or so ago when your beautiful designs started popping up on my Instagram feed. Before that I had no clue you were interested in leather work. Was it always something you wanted to explore?
Pamela: It’s always been a pleasure for me to create unique things. I used to love luxury bags but found it tough when I saw another person with my bag despite having paid so much for it. So, I decided to make only unique pieces. One skin, one bag, one person. I wanted to create a leather bag that would be a lifetime bag. I started this business as a hobby at first, then people started asking me to make some pieces for them.
Ana: You mentioned you studied leather work in Paris at Atelier Toolbox. How was that experience? Did you live in Paris while you took the courses?
Pamela: I did 3 sessions there. It was a really nice experience to meet all these people from different backgrounds and learn alongside them. Life in Paris is not my favorite but there are some great suppliers and lots to draw inspiration from there. My apartment was neat–only 2 minutes away from the Eiffel Tower.
Ana: How do you come up with your designs?
Pamela: Each leather has a particularity and each inspires something different–bright colors bring a more simple design and subtler colors are used for more complex designs. Each of my bags are made for people who love to have unique pieces–I never handcraft the same design, color, or mix twice.
Ana: You are very particular about the leather you choose to work with. Where do you get it from?
Pamela: I buy leather from smaller tanners in Paris and one big one in Italy. My leathers come from the same tanners that some of the world’s most prestigious luxury labels, such as Chanel and Hermes, get theirs.
Ana: Since you started this business, you’ve had a little baby girl. How do you juggle it all?
Pamela: My daughter is amazing, she spends hours watching me sew. She tries to touch, smell, and mimic everything I do. She’s ready to inherit the company already! She gets so quiet when the machine starts… I get a lot of satisfaction from the creative process–I can spend a full week on a bag to ensure the best handcrafted quality. We say ‘If you don’t want to work a day of your life, do something you love’. I do!
Ana: I find it so inspiring that some day you decided to pursue this passion and you are really going for it, despite all of life’s distractions. Any advice for other new entrepreneurs who might be scared to start?
Pamela: Jump! The winners are the players.
Ana is a Multi-Disciplinary Designer and Art Director living in Los Angeles, California. She is a co-founder of an international digital studio GRIDDL , where freelancers come together to work on web-based projects.
