The history of Label Art


It all started in 1995.


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


She is an artist, just like you. She paints 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 a course or followed a "master". She paints by instinct.
She is Nicole. She lives near Paris. Besides loving painting and operas, she loves nature and the sea.
Every summer she takes her car and drives straight to the South to spend her vacations there and to get inspired by this Var region that she is beginning to know well. A small village high up in the mountains welcomes her painting studio and her equipment which quickly runs out at the rhythm of the weeks under the sun and the song of the cicadas.
One day when she has no more titanium whites, Nicole decides to drive to a color merchant, and at the same time to frame some of the canvases she has painted under the burning sun of these last weeks.

And that's where she heads for the frame factory that will change her life.
Nestled in the depths of an industrial zone, lost in the many businesses of La Seyne sur Mer, hides a frame workshop. Oh, of course it's not the greatest luxury, here everything is made up, even the front door, but when you park in front of it, you feel that it's a bit of a place apart, almost unreal.
First of all, the gigantic sliding front door that allows you to access the store is different from other usual stores. Do you know this painting by Vincent Van Gogh? It depicts a couple of exhausted harvesters taking a nap in the shade of a millstone in the summer. It is called "the meridian".
Magnificent and gigantic, the setting is set: it is this fresco reproduced on a huge surface that appeals to the visitor 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 is at this moment that Nicole understands that her life is going to be turned upside down.

What if she followed her instincts? What if she bought this factory which is not for sale? What if she stepped forward right now, asking the owner to think about her request and consider that she is really serious. What if she dared?

From this crazy and improbable moment springs the story of Label Art. A few months later, Nicole sells her house, leaves the Parisian suburbs and settles in her little house in the South of France to go every day to this place dreamed of by artists and to manage this "small business" while pursuing her passion: painting.

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


What happened next?


In 1997, Caroline and Pascal took over. Caroline is Nicole's daughter. I am the one who is telling you this beautiful story today, sitting at my desk in sunny Provence, with a coffee next to me. It's morning, in this beautiful month of June, and I'm thinking about all the ground I've covered in all these years.

I too left Paris at 22. The capital was holding out its arms to me, a nice job offer in a well known multinational company. But no ... I took up the challenge of becoming a company manager. And 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 that time, nobody understood much about it. We were tinkerers and I loved it. I spent an endless amount of 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, we had a great success: 20 visits per day! ;-)
And even orders! At the time, banks did not offer any online payment options. So we proposed to our first Internet customers simple solutions to build and move towards what revolutionized the whole world in the following years.
To be pioneers in this technology, what a fabulous challenge for the team that we were ...

And then very quickly everything happened.
Already the collections of frames chosen by Pascal have expanded. You have to see Pascal, choosing each year his models of mouldings, at the international fair of Florence and Bologna! When he arrives on a stand, he is warmly welcomed and then he is left to unfold the sets of angles. To choose them, he has his own particular way: remove the molding 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 the tones, the possible variations and also giving his opinions which will be listened to by the molding manufacturers when the final model is made after the show.
We are proud to have launched and designed the Estoril collection in the 2000s or Tamaris, which were great successes throughout the country!

Pascal Dussouet now manages thousands of references that he pilots from systems ingeniously developed by him. The team composed of qualified carpenters, sales consultants and order preparers is permanently oriented towards the satisfaction of our customers, some of whom have followed us since the beginning of the adventure. Others have joined us in the meantime. We have always favored listening and consultation, sometimes spending long hours with them to understand their expectations and adapt each new version to their eyes of Artists.
Thus was born the blog that talks about painting techniques and also our YouTube video channel.

What happened to Nicole? I'm sure you're asking yourself that question right now. She is living in her Provencal home and is currently working on her rose bushes and vegetable garden.

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

Alicia: Welcome to the chatbot!