Atelier Vime’s Provencal shop returns for a sublime season break

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From its sensitively restored 18th century sanctuary private hotel In the Provençal village of Vallabrègues, Benoît Rauzy and Anthony Watson have quietly elevated the destiny of a single material: wicker. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the secluded village was the epicenter of European basketry, and after the couple discovered half-made woven baskets and design sketches during their 2016 home renovation (remnants of its previous incarnation as a wicker workshop), they were inspired to create Atelier Vime. The studio’s collections of lighting, mirrors, and French willow furniture now have a strong following, and its recently renovated seasonal store, La Maison Vime, has already earned cult status.

atelier vime she works with 30 weavers from across France to produce her handmade designs, some made from her own crop of willow trees harvested on her small property on the de Rauzy family farm in Brittany. The products are sold online as well as in select stores such as stream cutter in the Cotswolds. Over the past seven years, the studio has evolved to encompass everything from marbled mixed-earth Uzès ceramics to urn-shaped terracotta candles and artist-made notebooks, encapsulating an aesthetic defined by rustic elegance.

Rauzy and Watson’s way of living ignites devotion among their 261k followers, who, in summer, are invited to step into their world with art de vivre store, La Maison Vime. Located in the former wicker workshop adjacent to their home, which they purchased in 2020, this recently renovated store is known for inspiring an emotional response from visitors. “People come into the store, see the house firsthand, and realize that everything we share is real,” says Rauzy.

La Maison Vime is the destination store par excellence. Apart from the local boulangerie and boucherie, it is the only shop in the village. It is located 25 km north of Arles, on the left bank of the Rhône, and the journey through the Provençal countryside is central to the experience. The only sign that you’ve arrived is the lone basket hanging from a wrought-iron bracket outside. Visitors then enter through an ancient wooden door, along a corridor, and out into a cobbled courtyard that has been transformed into a leafy oasis of cypress, lemon, and fig trees. The pebbles used for the space involved resurrecting a Rhone Valley tradition known as calade, where rounded stones were typically quarried from river banks, favored for their role in preventing flooding and ease of movement for boats. Here, they are set against a massive terracotta frieze designed by the New Zealand-based artist. wayne pate and brought to life by the British tile company balineo. The panel forms an evocative backdrop for Atelier Vime’s rattan furniture and tableware (from €90), including beautifully hand-patterned tablecloths (from €90) created with French designer Marie-Victoire de Bascher.

La Maison Vime is a store for the home in the truest sense. There is a kitchen on the ground floor full of ceramics (from €48); a library complete with the couple’s most beloved books on design and gastronomy; a light blue bedroom with a four-poster bed; and a simple lounge with whitewashed walls and a changing assortment of Atelier Vime editions, alongside the vintage rattan, rope and wicker designs they’ve long collected (from €90). These are accompanied by a growing offering of curated art: paintings and drawings drawn largely from the colorful and eclectic ’20s and ’30s, an era Rauzy calls “the real beginning of abstraction.”

In one of the bathrooms on the second floor of the main interior there is a mural that represents the Edenic gardens. Elsewhere are other pictorial pieces, many by Pate: lampshades (from €90), ceramic tile renderings of Atelier Vime’s Medici Vase (€32), and a wicker and wood cabinet decorated with leaves of hammered copper (€10,800). It is typical of the relaxed, non-strategic style that Rauzy and Watson bring to the creative process and artist collaborations. “It always happens very naturally,” says Rauzy.

New for the summer season is a debut line of utilitarian wicker for the home that ranges from laundry hampers to bottle holders. But even more fascinating is the first foray into the world of women. accessories – the Vime bag (€1,200). In true Atelier Vime style, this natural wicker costume jewelery nods to 19th century flower baskets. Designed with Raphaëlle Hanley, who has worked as an accessories designer for Saint Laurent, it also harkens back to the swaggering spirit of the Incroyables and Merveilleuses, a stylish 18th-century subculture and precursor to punk. “They were known for changing the shape and use of objects, and that’s what we’ve done here,” says Rauzy.

The studio and shop make for a compelling second act for Rauzy and Watson, who previously worked as environmental consultants and hairstylists, respectively. Its worldwide success, which has attracted clients such as pierre yovanovich, it has been a surprise. “We’re just doing what the inhabitants of the house were doing in the 1870s,” says Rauzy. “Artisan manufacture of natural wicker.”

The couple now embarks on their next big transformation: an abandoned castle in Normandy. Its attics are a treasure trove of artifacts, antiques, and memorabilia from its noble past. Who knows where these discoveries will take them?

The Atelier Vime season will end on September 3