This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
There’s power in a name when it holds both history and intent. In French, “mettre son bleu de chauffe” means to get to work—honestly, courageously, with both hands.
For Alexandre Rousseau, Founder and Creative Director of Bleu de Chauffe, this expression became more than a label. It became a mindset. Sixteen years on, that same spirit guides a team of artisans in southern France who craft each bag from start to finish, signing their names as a mark of pride. In an age of automation, that human signature stands as a quiet act of resistance and of beauty.
In this Brand Talks interview, Alexandre Rousseau reflects on how Bleu de Chauffe continues to embody this philosophy: working with purpose, preserving tradition, and designing objects meant not just to be owned, but lived with.
You’re the founder of Bleu de Chauffe and the creative director. Where do you find inspiration for creating new products?
It’s never just one place or one moment, because my creativity comes from a mix of things. But it all comes from the identity of the brand. Sixteen years ago, we defined what Bleu de Chauffe should stand for, not only for today but for the next 10, 20, 30 years—maybe even beyond me, I hope. That identity is built on three pillars: the style, how we manufacture, and the materials we use. Every product has to stay true to that.
From there, inspiration can come from many directions. For me, it mostly starts with the material rather than the shape. When I visit suppliers, the first thing I do is touch the leather. Just by feeling it—whether it’s saddle leather, pull-up leather, something waxed, or something full-grain—I can confirm an idea or completely change my mind. That tactile moment is often the beginning of a design.
Then comes sketching and experimentation in my office. But an equally important part of the creative process still happens back in the workshop! Once we start making prototypes, things can change. I might have a clear idea in mind, but when I work with the artisans, they’ll tell me what’s possible, what’s difficult, or sometimes they’ll surprise me with a better solution. That exchange is essential. Prototyping is a creative phase full of surprises.
History is another big source of inspiration. Right now, for example, we’re revisiting one of our first pieces, the French postman bag. To redesign it properly, we study how it was made, why certain materials were used, and why specific details existed—not just for aesthetics, but for durability. When you understand the history, you understand why the design works.
And finally, maybe the most important inspiration today: the silhouette. I don’t want to design just a beautiful object. I want it to live on someone’s shoulder, with their jacket, their shoes, their denim. So I imagine the Bleu de Chauffe customer—what they wear, how they move, who they are. It’s not a constraint; it’s part of the creative process. Staying connected to real people keeps the design alive.
When I visit suppliers, the first thing I do is touch the leather. Just by feeling it I can confirm an idea or completely change my mind. That tactile moment is often the beginning of a design.
Before Bleu de Chauffe, you designed for Richemont. Which lessons did you learn from high luxury, and how did they help you build a label rooted in workwear?
Working for a luxury group like Richemont was a schooling experience for me. I learned so much about creativity, precision, and craftsmanship. In high luxury, the notion of cost doesn’t really exist. What matters is perfection: the best materials, the best workshops, the most refined construction. You have no limits in terms of quality. But at the same time, you’re creating for someone else’s identity, and it’s not your brand.
It was an incredible experience and an honor to be surrounded by such skilled artisans and suppliers in France, Italy, Spain. I learned my craft there—watch design, accessories, and especially precision. Designing watches teaches you to work at less than a millimeter of tolerance. That level of precision from watchmaking still influences how I design today.
But I also realized what I wanted to leave behind. In big companies, decisions take time. There are layers of approval, politics, meetings. Sometimes the final decision isn’t the most creative one, but the most “acceptable” one. And as someone who has a lot of ideas, I like to move fast, make decisions, and stay close to the product.
That’s why I created Bleu de Chauffe. To take my own decisions, to stay small and agile, to remove the bureaucracy and focus on creativity and making. Now I’m both the founder and the designer still, because that’s the part I love the most. We decide quickly, we stay close to the product, and we don’t waste time on politics.
You chose Aveyron—a place with glove-making history—rather than a major fashion capital. How has the region’s culture and pace shaped your approach to design, hiring, and quality?
We always joke that we work and live in the middle of nowhere, but that’s exactly what makes Bleu de Chauffe what it is. From here, surrounded by fields, rivers, farms, and the Millau Viaduct right outside our windows, we’re designing bags that are sold all over the world, from France and Northern Europe to South Korea, China and Japan. It’s still a bit surreal to think that you can build a craftsmanship-driven brand in a place like this and export it globally.
Aveyron is not Paris, Milan, or any fashion capital. It’s about 100 kilometers north of Montpellier, in the south of France. But it has an incredible history of craftsmanship. This region is famous for Roquefort cheese and sheep farming, and because of the sheep, you had leather production and tanneries. From leather came glove-making. It was an early example of a circular economy: sheep for milk, cheese, and then leather. That entire ecosystem built a tradition of working with leather. Without Roquefort cheese, you wouldn’t have this culture of leatherwork. It’s all connected.
So choosing Aveyron wasn’t just a strategic business decision—it was a life decision. When I started Bleu de Chauffe 16 years ago, I knew I wanted to work with artisans, with real materials, inspired by workwear and the outdoors. I met Julien, our first artisan, and we began with just him: one person producing our whole first collection. Then we added a second artisan, then a third. Today we have around 30 artisans in the workshop. We’ve grown slowly, step by step, always focused on preserving know-how.
Aveyron is the right place for that. The region has a strong tradition in leatherwork, glove-making, and accessories. Even nearby, Chanel has workshops here. There’s a network of small manufacturers, skilled hands, and people who understand the craft. That’s why we stayed.
Your brand name comes from a worker’s jacket and an idiom about getting to work. When you think about “putting on your bleu de chauffe” today, what does that mindset look like in your studio and in your life?
When we created the brand, we defined everything from the start: our design philosophy, our way of producing, the materials we would use. We knew we were inspired by workwear, so we began searching for a name that reflected that spirit. Sixteen years ago it was already difficult to find a name, and today it’s even more complicated. But after a lot of brainstorming, we landed on Bleu de Chauffe. It was a French name, it wasn’t registered yet, and the domain name was available, so it felt right.
But more importantly, it carried meaning. A bleu de chauffe is the traditional work jacket worn by railway workers who shoveled coal into locomotive engines. And in French, the expression “mettre son bleu de chauffe” means to get to work—to be courageous, to work hard, to do things well. You hear it a lot in team sports: it means you’re going to give everything for the team. In business, it means you’re ready to push, to build, to take your company forward.
So when I think about “putting on my bleu de chauffe” today, it’s exactly that mindset. It’s the commitment to work with honesty, with courage, and to do things properly.
And I believe we stay true to it. It would be much easier to design a product and then have it manufactured somewhere far away, already finished. But that’s not who we are. At Bleu de Chauffe, we buy the rivets, the leather, the thread, the fabric, the edge paint, the glue: we source every component ourselves. We own the machines, we prototype everything in our workshop in Saint-Georges-de-Luzençon. One hundred percent of our bags are made there, by our artisans.
It’s a harder path—more complex, more demanding—but it gives the brand its soul and its singularity. We don’t say we are the best, but we are different. And every time we create, every time we produce, we are literally “putting on our bleu de chauffe.”
“Putting on my bleu de chauffe” is the commitment to work with honesty, with courage, and to do things properly.
One artisan builds, signs, and dates each bag. What changes when a product carries a maker’s name—and how do you preserve that authorship as you grow?
If you want to truly be an artisanal brand, then the connection between the artisan and the customer has to be real, not just a marketing story. That’s why we decided from day one that every bag should be signed and dated by the person who made it.
In a way, the brand exists in between just two people: the artisan and the customer. Our role is simply to create that link, and make it visible. That’s why the signature matters: it’s proof of authorship, responsibility, and pride.
It started with Julien, our very first artisan, who signed the first Bleu de Chauffe bags. Sixteen years later, even with 30 artisans in the workshop, we still work exactly the same way. The production setup hasn’t turned into an industrial chain. It’s still a workshop—small islands of workstations, each one belonging to a single artisan, with their tools, and their machines.
This way of working gives responsibility back to the maker. Each artisan oversees their product from start to finish. They own the quality of what they create. There are still multiple quality checks, by the artisan themselves and by someone from the team who checks all products every day. But the final gesture—the signature—is about traceability and pride.
And it creates something beautiful on the other side too. Customers write to us, send messages on Instagram or emails to customer service saying, “Please thank Éloïse,” or “Tell Charlie I love the bag he made.” That human connection is real. And maybe five or ten years from now, they’ll still remember the name of the person who made their bag. That’s exactly why we protect this process as we grow.
You’ve taken a political stance on manufacturing—finite resources, work and well-being. Can you share a concrete decision where those principles overruled an easier commercial path?
Last year, we faced a difficult situation: our production capacity wasn’t enough to meet demand. Some of our best-selling products were often out of stock because we couldn’t make more. Every year, we try to increase capacity, but we do it slowly. We can’t just double production, because to do that, we’d have to double the number of artisans, expand the workshop, and eventually change our whole structure.
Of course, there have been moments where we could have chosen an easier path—like partnering with another workshop to produce more and sell more. But for us, that would mean losing something essential: the identity and singularity of Bleu de Chauffe. Staying small, staying in Saint-Georges-de-Luzençon, keeping production in our own hands, are all choices that protect the brand in the long run.
There’s also a practical side to this. When everything is produced under one roof, I’m 20 meters away from the workshop. If there’s a problem with quality, materials, something human, I can walk over, see it with my own eyes, make a decision, and solve it with the team. If production is somewhere else, even in France, you don’t see what’s really happening. You lose control not only of quality, but of the human side.
We work with natural vegetable-tanned leather, and artisanal production comes with risks and challenges every day. Materials vary, problems arise, and when you produce yourself, you take responsibility for all of it. That’s why, for us, there’s really no other way. Preserving the process matters more than producing more.
What have customers taught you about living with a bag—repairs, marks, and stories—that changed how you design the next one?
For me, it’s essential to stay connected to our customers and to our suppliers. We’ve been working with the same tanneries and canvas makers for more than 10 years. This long-term relationship, along with our timeless approach to design and sourcing, is what allows us to offer reliable repairs.
After 10 years, some bags come back to us: sometimes just for a stitched seam, other times with a whole story attached. Quite often, customers send bags that have been chewed by their dogs. Apparently, dogs love natural vegetable-tanned leather! But what’s really special is that through these repairs, we step into the life of our customers. They explain what happened to the bag, where it’s been, and why it matters to them.
When we’re able to repair a bag and give it back, it creates a strong connection. These bags age with their owners, and with care products, time, daily life, the patina evolves. When an old bag returns to us, you can see its journey. That’s what makes leather so beautiful: it changes, it lives.
That’s why we choose high-quality materials: British Millerain canvas, beautiful French and Italian leathers, and full-grain vegetable-tanned leather where the color penetrates into the core, not just painted on top. Because after 10 years, those materials still look incredible. When a customer receives a repaired bag, they’re happy not because it looks new, but because it’s their old bag.
If you could define the soul of Bleu de Chauffe through three products, which would they be—and why?
That’s a tough question, because every bag we make carries part of my story, the company’s story, and the whole creative journey. But if I had to name a piece that really represents Bleu de Chauffe, it would be the Éclair Postman Bag. I designed it at the very beginning, and it’s still our best-seller today. It’s sold all over the world, from Le Bon Marché in Paris, one of the most prestigious department stores, to shops in Asia and the U.S. For us, it has become a standard, almost a symbol of the brand.
Another key piece is the Musette Business Bag. It’s not as old, but it marks an evolution, a new chapter in the identity of Bleu de Chauffe. And then there’s the Meline Tote, which for me perfectly captures what the brand stands for today: simplicity, quality, elegance, and a workwear spirit.
But honestly, the most important product is always the one I’m working on right now. At the moment, we’re creating the Spring–Summer 2026 collection in the workshop. That creative moment is at the heart of my work. For me, the next bag is always the most important one.
What’s a small imperfection you’ve learned to love in a handmade product?
Imperfections come from the material itself, and that’s what I love. We work with natural, vegetable-tanned leather. It’s not chrome-tanned, not covered with plastic coatings or fake grain. It’s leather that’s been dyed through the core using natural tannins like chestnut, acacia or mimosa.
When we receive the hides, you can still see small marks, scars, natural variations. Some people might see them as defects, but to us, they’re part of the soul of the material. We simply cut around the worst parts, but we always keep the natural grain and texture because that’s what makes each bag unique.
If you cover leather with paint or plastic it looks perfect, but it will never age beautifully. It won’t develop a patina. Over time, the coating cracks or scratches off. With natural leather, those little imperfections and marks become part of the story. They evolve and wear in, not out.
Imagine a future customer opening a 20-year-old Bleu de Chauffe they’ve cared for. What do you hope they feel first—in the leather, the stitching, the memory?
It’s a simple wish—that if someone opens a Bleu de Chauffe bag 20 years on, their first instinct is, “I want to wear this.” Even if it was made decades ago, it should still feel relevant, beautiful, and ready to be used.
When I design, I’m not thinking about one season or a trend. The line I draw on paper has to last. It has to feel timeless. Of course, I’m aware of fashion, but I don’t want to create fashion products. That’s not the spirit of the brand, and it’s not how I create.
So everything has to be made to live for a long time. I want someone 20 years from now to pick up a Bleu de Chauffe bag and feel that the design hasn’t aged, the materials have evolved beautifully, and the bag still has a place in their life.
If they feel the urge to use it again, to make it part of their everyday life—that’s the best compliment to the work we do.
