All in leather, all of very high quality, all otherwise destined to the landfill. These are the three characteristics of Bandit Manchot products, the small leather goods brand founded in 2010 by French entrepreneurs Marie-Laure Biscond, Marie-Christine Frison and Anne Duquesnoy. “I joined the family leather-goods business, for which my two future partners worked as freelance designers – explains Marie-Laure Biscond to touleco-tarn.fr -. When the company went out of business, we realised we had to do something together”. In the warehouse of Graulhet, a French town not far from Toulouse with a long tradition of leather-working, Biscond family leather-goods business had accumulated many cuttings of unused leather. High quality raw material from the best French tanneries, to which, with their entrepreneurial spirits, the three women decided to give new life.
Everything is transformed
This is how the first full-grain leather postcards, 10 centimetres by 15, were born, on one side of which recycled paper is applied with messages for anniversaries (like birthdays). A new and much appreciated idea, from which Bandit Manchot has built its success. Today, in addition to postcards, wallets, bags and other accessories come out of the brand’s laboratory. “We are forerunners in the re-use of leather – continues Biscond -. We buy the unused raw material, for example the end-of-series ones, from the main French companies, like shoe factories and tanneries, and we use them to produce our collections”. Today Bandit Manchot products are sold in over 300 stores in France, and marketed throughout the rest of the world through the brand’s e-commerce portal.
Photos from the brand’s Facebook account
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