Meet the Fabric Specialist Behind Ariana Grande’s Met Gala Dress and Luxury’s Go-to Textile Expert
PARIS — In a nondescript industrial zone on the outskirts of Paris lies Crazy Park, an indoor amusement park for children. Tucked in an alley behind it is the even more unassuming entrance for Teintures de France.
It’s hard to imagine that this is where brands including Balenciaga, Chloé, Louis Vuitton and Hermès jostle to place their orders in the run-up to Paris Fashion Week.
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On a recent Monday morning, their names were among those handwritten on the colored folders laid out on a table in the reception area of the French luxury sector’s go-to dyeing and fabric treatment specialist.
Step through the doors, and you enter a world of bubbling vats of color, giant laundry machines, spray-painting stations and rows of printers. Here, age-old vegetable dyeing techniques rub shoulders with state-of-the-art laser etching, 3D printing and stamping tools.
“Everything changed during the coronavirus pandemic,” said Serge Haouzi, manager of design at Teintures de France, recounting how brands turned to the factory to supply their fabric needs when travel was suspended.
“Before then, we’d be super busy for a month, a month-and-a-half before the shows. It was seasonal,” he continued. “Now we’re busy all year round. We’re open through August, Christmas, New Year.”
Beyond the runway, Teintures de France has played a part in a host of key fashion moments, ranging from the Loewe dress worn by Ariana Grande at the Met Gala, to the gold-painted outfits of the dancers suspended from the scaffolding around Notre-Dame cathedral during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
Though it employs just 45 people, including Haouzi’s wife, two daughters and nephews, the company is known for its ability to deal with last-minute emergencies. “They know they can reach us anytime. I’m always connected,” Haouzi said of his clients.
The dyers at Teintures de France are renowned for interpreting creative briefs and reproducing colors from the tiniest sample, taking into account everything from the nature of the fabric to the light in which it will be viewed.
It’s become an increasingly rarefied profession in France, so much so that Haouzi has started recruiting specialists from Tunisia.
“In the ’90s, there were more than 100 dyers and bleachers in Paris. Today, we’re the only bleacher, and in dyeing, there are only four of us left,” he noted.
Between 2021 and 2024, Haouzi and his business partner Thierry Azerad invested close to 5 million euros in state-of-the-art machinery, including more than 10 3D textile printers. “Today, we’re the only ones in France offering this range of services,” he said.
An energetic, mile-a-minute talker, Haouzi likes to put the machines through their paces.
“For example, we bought the latest Monna Lisa from Epson. It’s a machine designed for printing natural fabrics, so I said, let’s try it with leather,” he recounted. “I damaged some printheads, so we had to change them. But we managed to print leather in a way that even Epson could not have imagined.”
Having started his career in dry cleaning for clients including Disneyland Paris and the Moulin Rouge, Haouzi began collaborating with designers in the early 2000s after Jean-Claude Jitrois asked him to distress a pair of his signature stretch leather pants.
He went on to work with Christophe Decarnin on his artfully shredded T-shirts for Balmain, and more recently helped John Galliano create the vintage-effect leather corsets for his critically acclaimed spring 2024 Artisanal collection for Maison Margiela.
The company also deals with smaller brands like Charles de Vilmorin, most recently producing the printed fabrics for his segment during the Olympics opening ceremony, which featured aerial dancers perched on top of poles along the Pont Neuf.
Before the pandemic, Teintures de France was bringing in just over 2 million euros in revenues. Haouzi projects revenues will rise to between 10 million euros and 12 million euros in 2025, up from 6 million to 7 million euros this year.
The company will shortly expand into a neighboring warehouse, more than doubling its surface to around 37,500 square feet, with plans to add clothing manufacturing to its menu of services.
By the end of the year, it will also have systems in place to recycle its wastewater, with further plans to generate its own energy. Haouzi said the firm has worked hard to phase out environmentally damaging ingredients and processes, and has applied for ISO14001 certification.
“Out of 1,500 products we were using, more than 800 were toxic,” he said. “Now, there are only three.”
It has also invested in machines that reduce pollution, such as Jeanologia’s G2 Atmos, which uses ozone to wash jeans, significantly reducing the need for water and chemicals.
“We are in this process of trying to become the greenest atelier possible,” he said, noting that he’s pushing for brands to adopt sustainable technologies, even though they’re more costly.
The specialist is also nurturing the next generation of talent through a partnership with the Institut Français de la Mode that allows students to use its facilities for their degree shows.
In addition, Teintures de France is supporting five designers for the next edition of the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography in October.
Working with fashion design students allows the company to build relationships with the creative directors of the future, while also teaching them the tricks of the trade.
“You have to be passionate to do this job,” Haouzi said. “To me, they’re not just clients, they are partners.”
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