Getting to know Christophe Morcamp, founder and designer of the feminine French eyewear brand Plein Les Mirettes.
How did you get in the eyewear design?
Trained as an Orthoptist and Optometrist, I was also a store owner. I wanted to offer a collection that was beautiful, fun and mixed with different styles. In general, brands have one style, one identity. Having a branded collection in the store requires the purchase of a minimum quantity order that is sometimes enormous (depending on the brand) for one single identity. I wanted a collection that I could offer to a lot of different types of women in order to optimize inventory turnover and “ensure” sales.
What does ” Plein Les mirettes” stands for?
This is an old French expression to say “full in your eyes” … It is so beautiful, wonderful it makes you fall on your butt in fact, to be enchanted in the “magic” sense of enchantment. Think about the star in your eyes Emoji. That’s to have ”Plein Les Mirettes” in French.
What sets you apart of the competition?
It is precisely the number of colors, shapes, the permanent renewal that sets us apart. We are a family owned business that works solely with French manufacturing. We only create frames for women and manage the entire design, manufacturing, decision and communication process.
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What are your inspirations? Brand Philosophy?
Who, better than a man knows what men wants to see in women? Who better than a woman knows how to feel beautiful? Let’s say that the advantage of being gay is to be a man with a more feminine sensitivity. Also I have two years of medical school in my curriculum … I learned anatomy … I also did exhibitions (paintings, drawings) and took lessons for years of aesthetics and proportion.
Our brand philosophy is For women, Only women but All women …. whatever their styles, their morphology their character and the desire, the image they wish to have or give to the world. The world is a scene …. they are the main actresses.
How do you design a frame? What is your creative process?
The design is created first from my feelings, I look at my own collection in order to continue what might be ” missing” Overall I take a step back on the life of what is in fashion (after the thin comes back the thick, after the round comes back the square after the small comes back the big). The fashion never stopped coming back and coming back again. I watch the high fashion cat-walk shows where I get my inspirations on color trends, fashion inspire me but being fashionable is not for me a goal.
I create for women and I want to sell to women so quickly it comes down to simpler thing, the faces of my clients are not necessarily fashionable, it’s up to me to make them beautiful despite that. I want my client to feel beautiful, it’s different. I want all women wearing PLM to be intendance all the time and not necessarily in fashion. I manage to be in trend … not fashionable …. a trend arranged “a la PLM” in order to” stick “to my customers.
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Can you explain more about the different themes? (Demoiselle-Diva-Re-Belle-Fantasque-Hybrid)
The goal was for women to find categories of different characters without age involved. Demoiselle evokes softness and roundness … sobriety. Woman in the age of 50 years or a girl of 25 years will not seek the same look. A 25 years old girl will find that the name demoiselle makes the collection “current”, fashionable rather than the 50 years old women will be more sensitive to the softness that emerges.
Ditto for the others, Diva is felt as flamboyant, colorful impulsive or exuberant according to the woman who questions herself. Re-belle in 2 words: beautiful again inspire retro, the past. Today all my themes blend together to create one universal collection.
Why do you have so many references and colors?
Because we want our collection to fit “all women” we have decided to multiply our models with colors that will fit any faces shapes or adapt to every skin tones. We are following the trends and fashion with our colors which are different from one country to another, or one season to another. Our whole collection is in “Limited Series” therefor I have to renew it regularly.
Free press release: Plein Les Mirettes
