The story Label Art

It all began in 1995.

Label Art, is the story of a woman who turned her dream into reality..

She's an artist, just like you. She's been painting as she breathes, for years. Snow landscapes in summer because it's too hot, and summer landscapes to warm up the long winter evenings, mainly naive art. She has never taken classes or followed any "masters". She paints by instinct.
Her name is Nicole. She lives just outside Paris. Apart from her love of painting and operas, she adores nature and the sea.
Every summer, she gets in her car and drives south to spend her vacations there, inspired by the Var region, which she is beginning to know well. A small, hilltop village is home to her painting studio and its equipment, which quickly runs out as the weeks go by under the sun and the song of the cicadas.
One day, when she runs out of titanium white, Nicole decides to drive to a color merchant, and at the same time frame a few canvases she has painted under the blazing sun over the last few weeks.

And that's where she heads for the frame factory that's about to change her life.
Tucked away in an industrial zone, lost among the many businesses of La Seyne sur Mer, hides a framing workshop. Oh, sure, it's not exactly luxurious - everything here is cobbled together, even the front door - but when you pull up in front of it, you get the feeling that it's a place a little apart, almost unreal.
First of all, the gigantic sliding front door that gives access to the store is different from the usual stores. Do you know this painting by Vincent Van Gogh? It depicts a couple of exhausted harvesters taking a siesta in the shade of a millstone in summer. It's called "la méridienne".
Magnificent and gigantic, the setting is set: it's this fresco, reproduced on an immense surface, that catches the visitor's eye and makes him smile as soon as he contemplates the place!

When she opens the big door of the store next to the workshop, she discovers a myriad of products, and the boss looks at her with benevolence.

And it's at this moment that Nicole understands that her life is about to change.

What if she followed her instincts? What if she bought the factory that wasn't for sale? What if she walked in there, right now, and asked the owner to think about her request and consider that she was really serious. What if she dared?

From this crazy, unlikely moment springs the story of Label Art. A few months later, Nicole sold her house, left the Parisian suburbs and moved into her little house in the South of France, going every day to the artists' dream location and managing this "small business" while pursuing her passion: painting.

Label Art was born of a desire: to make her life a dream and her dream a reality.

What happened next?

In 1997, Caroline and Pascal took over the business. Caroline is Nicole's daughter. As it happens, I'm the one who's telling you this beautiful story today, sitting at my desk in sunny Provence, coffee in hand. It's morning, in this beautiful month of June, and I'm thinking about how far I've come in all these years.

I too left Paris at the age of 22. The capital was holding out its arms to me, a great job offer with a well-known multinational. But no... I took up the challenge of becoming an entrepreneur. I joined the team in January 1996.

I fell into the magic potion of the Internet in 1998. So we created our first website. At the time, nobody understood much about it. We were tinkerers and I loved it. I spent endless time with my 56K modem, trying to understand the immense communication possibilities of this new network. It fascinated me.
The first version of the site included 5 articles, and we were a hit: 20 visits a day! ;-)
And even orders! At the time, banks didn't offer online payment. So we offered our first Internet customers simple, cobbled-together solutions to build and advance towards what would revolutionize the entire world in the years to follow.
To be pioneers in this technology - what a fabulous challenge for the team we were ...

And then, very quickly, everything came together.
Already, the collections of frames chosen by Pascal were growing. Just look at Pascal, choosing his molding models every year at the international trade fairs in Florence and Bologna! When he arrives at a stand, he's greeted with a warm welcome, and then he's left to unfurl the play of angles. He has his own special way of choosing them: remove the moulding sets from the walls, spread them out on the floor and contemplate them from afar, scrunching up his eyes to better grasp the shimmering intensities and reflections, like an artist contemplating his fresco!
Then you see him discussing tones, possible variations and also contributing his opinions, which will be listened to by the moulding manufacturers when the final model is produced after the show.
We're very proud to have launched and designed the Estoril collection back in the 2000s, and the Tamaris collection, which was a huge success nationwide!

Pascal Dussouet now manages thousands of references, using systems he has ingeniously developed himself. The team, made up of qualified joiners, sales advisors and order pickers, is constantly focused on customer satisfaction, some of whom have been with us since the beginning of the adventure. Others have joined us in the meantime. We have always given priority to listening and consultation, sometimes spending long hours with them to understand their expectations and adapt each new version to their artistic vision.
This is how the blog on painting techniques and our YouTube video channel came into being.

What has become of Nicole? I'm sure you're wondering that right now. She's enjoying a peaceful life in her Provencal home, and is currently devoting herself to her rose bushes and vegetable garden.

Voltaire was right! "Let's cultivate our garden!