PUBLISHER OF RARE, HAND-WOVEN, CUSTOMISABLE FABRICS

The high standards of Paris l’après-midi have led this French publisher to collaborate
with exceptional manufacturers and weavers from Europe and Asia.

What does Paris l’après-midi offer?

Dominique Chevalier offers exceptional textiles through Paris l’après-midi, designed for the most beautiful interiors. Passionate about fibres and textiles since childhood, she created a brand that reflects her history, values, and image, focusing on the publication of rare and precious fabrics made from natural materials. These fabrics are intended for architects and decorators for their high-end decoration and furnishing projects. Excellence and heritage are at the heart of all creations imagined by Paris l’après-midi.

How does Paris l’après-midi approach its core business and materials?

Paris l’après-midi offers two experiences:

Balade: Clients are guaranteed to find the finest materials, preserved and available in stock in France. From cashmere velvet to silk velvet, Dominique seeks out exceptional fabrics and partners with factories to rework the colours, making them unique to her inspiration and universe.

Caprices: Clients gain access to hand-made fabrics, available on request, with endless possibilities for customisation and luxurious, unexpected materials. In addition to linen, wool, and cotton, one can (re)discover cashmere, felted cashmere (which can weigh up to 1 kilogram per square metre), yak and albino yak down, camel, banana fibre, and Himalayan nettle. This approach is unique in its conception and execution, involving blends, double-faced textiles, and intricate warp and weft techniques. The weavers in partner workshops in Nepal and Tibet are masters of each material, technique, and precise gesture needed to bring these exceptional fibres to life. Dominique loves colour, and both collections feature a harmonious mix of neutral tones and vibrant hues.

Strong Values That Define Paris l’après-midi

Paris l’après-midi is built on strong values: kindness, respect for people, materials, and environments. This specific and selective approach ensures collaborations with workshops that share these values. For Caprices, the raw materials, whether animal or plant-based, are hand-woven and hand-spun, ensuring the highest precision and creativity in terms of weight, textures, and thread thickness. The dyes are all hand-made and plant-based. This rigorous manufacturing process allows for a very high degree of customisation.

Two Modes of Production, an International Team

Balade: Excellence in Production and Collection

Favouring proximity, Balade is produced in Belgium and Italy. Paris l’après-midi introduces a new Balade collection each year, inspired by travels, encounters, whether with master embroiderers in India or in the heart of Paris, giving each fabric its name. Dominique also collaborates with factories on co-developing unique, exclusive, and confidential fabrics by reworking the colours or the structure of the fabric itself.

Caprices: Harmony and Customisation

During her search for partners and travels, Dominique Chevalier has established valuable connections with workshops in Nepal and Tibet. It is this relationship with the material, the work, the well-being within the workshop, and the very high level of knowledge and standards of the weavers that allow Dominique to imagine the most beautiful hand-woven fabrics. She offers a collection that serves as a foundation for her clients to customize textures and colors according to their desires. Bespoke creations and trials, inspired by Dominique and her clients.

A Local and International Team

In France, a team of three people welcomes clients or travels to share the incredible samples, both small and large. Dominique and her husband Gérard Chevalier receive clients by appointment in their Parisian workshop in Montparnasse. Their agent in France also visits clients. Paris l’après-midi has also partnered with distributors and agents abroad in London, New York, Austin, Los Angeles, Madrid, and Brussels.

Collaborations with Interior Designers and Decorators

For Balade, the catalogue selection ensures architects and decorators receive exceptional quality fabrics, with superior density and textures. Leveraging her trusted relationships with factories, Dominique can also offer special colours on request, with a minimum order requirement.

For Caprices, everything is made to order, in co-creation with the client. The client can draw inspiration from certain finished products (plaids, cushions), samples, and discuss their vision with Dominique, focusing on what their client is looking for. This is followed by project support: feasibility, direction, and adjustments based on time and financial resources. Then comes the sampling phase, choice of finishes, and, if necessary, development (approximately 3 weeks). The production time is five weeks.

Upholstery, curtains, furnishing fabrics, or interior decoration, Paris l’après-midi, with Balade and Caprices, reserves its exceptional and hand-woven fabrics for architects, decorators, and designers internationally, for their ambitious and prestigious projects.

You can discover an interview with Dominique Chevalier in the Portaits section.

Photos : ©Franck Juery