Interview: Catherine and Jean-Philippe Cousin, Filt1860 leaders

It is the common point between the provision net encountered on the markets, a practical and comfortable baby carrier, and one of the last bags designated by the famous Longchamp brand.He is the net made by the French company Filt1860.

Labeled Living Heritage Enterprise, Filt is one of these SMEs over a hundred years of age (160 years!) Supposed by a permanent desire to innovate, but also an ability to face crises and invest against the current,To offer new solutions.Its historic provisions net, very popular in the 1970s for its practicality, experienced a good international notoriety, and even made its comeback with a renewed design until the podiums of Paris Fashion Week.

At the head of this specialist in technical textiles such as nets, cords and portage scarf, Jean-Philippe Cousin and his wife Catherine have also been the owners of the SME since 2006. And if the provisions have become the star of theWorkshop, the company has diversified and has developed technical products for other industrial applications, such as nets for the automobile or agriculture, this with cotton, steel wire, kevlar and againother materials.Between management, technique and creativity, the duo of managers is complementary and can count on the know-how and the commitment of employees, innovation, sustainable development and responsiveness.But it is above all common sense, logic and a certain survival instinct developed with experience that are real forces to conduct the development strategy of society on a daily basis.

Catherine and Jean-Philippe Cousin agreed to return for us to the projects of this beautiful textile SME, standard of 100% French quality manufacturing.

Could you present us in a few words the specifics of the activity of filt today?

Filt has the chance to carry out its products on Tricotter Raschel, a know-how today not widespread in the territory, since we are less than a dozen companies that can offer it.Knowledge and skills are therefore transmitted internally since there is no longer any training sector in France today.We continue to make products ultimately very traditional, such as provisions, even though our customers ask us for very much technicality, for technological performance.Technical textiles do not mean only connected textiles or other.Filt has been based on innovation values, daring, and this continues today, but makes the business may be a little difficult to define or classify.

Our identity is the manufacture of very technical textiles, however, with part of our products intended directly for the general public.Half of our activity is carried out with these BtoC products, while remaining out of clothing, the other half of the sales is generated by technical applications.Our knowledge -technical features are therefore applicable to everyone!

Is it possible to draw up a first assessment at Filt after this year 2020 extraordinary?

We have managed to finish this year rather reinforced by the crisis, in several aspects.From a strictly economic point of view, sales of our products have continued, we have even developed new ones, which obviously protected the company from too strong financial hazards.

On the human side, it was an atypical period that has even more federated all employees around a common and essential project, in this case the manufacture of masks.If it had no commercial objective, it also opened the doors of greater collaboration with the other players in the sector.We met great people during these atypical months.And we were even able to hire two people among CDD recruitments made to produce the 120,000 masks ultimately made.

Our teams above all had the feeling of having given everything they could during this extraordinary "adventure". Everything was done in France while keeping our values ​​in mind, relying on our know-how, our employees, and it is a great pride. This company has been working for 160 years to offer quality made in France, with a fierce desire not to yield to relocation. The masks are made with a fabric woven in the territory, the attachments also, the making is Norman, the packaging is processed by a long -standing partner CAT, and a map of France appears on the user manual so that the consumer can access this information. No question of making a mask to make a mask, we wanted design, quality to be adequate with our DNA and our convictions. It was essential not to give in to panic and to keep all our common sense, with the ups and downs inherent in a period of crisis. The teams are very proud of the work done, and this line of conduct allowed us to resume our classic activity at the end of June, when the masks market was relatively stabilized. We had so many requests on the provisions, products that we master, that the return to normal activity was rather easy.

The activity of your company is based on historic professions and know-how, it is also labeled business of living heritage;Yet innovation is necessary to gain markets, to stand out from competition, how does it translate on a daily basis?

As said before, innovation is part of the Filt DNA, and each employee is likely to contribute.All ideas are welcome and listened to, whether to create or develop a product or process.And above all, very often, we set up the conditions to test these ideas, between two reference changes on a production line for example.

But innovations are also born from the needs expressed by our customers.For example, in the middle of a containment we were asked on a simple phone call to develop a net capable of processing hydrocarbons!In just a few days we exchanged the customer's expectations, and developed a first prototype.This was also the case with a request from a design agency that wanted us to develop a specific bag, to whom we were able to offer a sample in less than ten days.

Innovation is possible because the teams are extremely reactive, curious, agile.They are a real strength, and it works again and as we have done since the start of the adventure, following our common sense.This is what allows us to win markets. Also, no question of dyeing a biological cotton net!If logic wants this bag that this planet is less impacting than another thanks to an biological culture, what interest to dye it with chemical dyes using additional water or energy resources?It is important to keep a great coherence in each of its actions if we want to work in full confidence.

The Filt team is engaged for the first time in a European research project called Indigo, why this time having chosen a collaborative project to innovate?

We had already worked, following a request for the valuation of biosourced threads based on corn starch, on a prototype of biodegradable sea net intended in particular for the myticulture.It was ten years ago, and at the time, if the final product seemed efficient, the market was not yet ready to change working methods and tools.We therefore remained there, especially since we lacked scientific validations to prove the performance of the product and make it a sale argument.

Two years ago, this European Indigo project was set up to promote the development of biodegradable fishing machines for the prevention of maritime pollution.It seemed promising to us, since we had this feedback ourselves, and the partners mobilized were those who had missed ten years before, of the Ifremer type, technological universities, bioplastics experts etc.The project is well committed, and we are impatiently awaiting the raw materials selected to take the net manufacturing stage.It is also an experience in terms of management because this type of collaborative project on a European scale requires particular attention and follow -up.We learn and discover the very framed functioning of the programs, the mode of distribution of funding, ... It is interesting to also learn in this area.

Durability and social responsibility are therefore strong markers of Filt DNA?

Respect and responsibility within and outside the company are prerequisites with us.Everyone has a role to play in our history.We were both educated while respecting our environment in the broad sense.It would not come to the idea of throwing our papers in the street, why would we throw ourselves without thinking about our production waste for example.We have sorted our boxes and palettes since this has been possible for more than 15 years.Each palette is reused, repaired or revalued according to its state.The carbon impact is also limited because we manufacture on the territory.

Bobinoirs also make it possible to enhance the remains of sons of the cones.It was of course an investment at the start, but it is widely amortized over time.Today, throughout the cotton that we use, we see less than 1% of waste after the manufacturing process.We are continuously improving our machines to drastically lower defect rates.And we are able to store several months of the material in order to use it only at the right time to use it and thus limit the remains.The margins made on a French manufacturing product remain limited, so it is necessary to optimize our processes so that our productions are economically interesting.

This way of working is at the very heart of the genesis of our famous provision net!Indeed, it was at the time when we were making nets in net, with very beautiful colorful cottons for the Japanese market, that we wondered about the best way to enhance our remains of material.The nets are thus, partly thanks to this recycling of end of lots, which have become emblematic filt products again.

@elliejo_ @missc_1717 I have no idea How to stop/-Any Advice to Give Unfortantaly but this!It is truly exhausting… https://t.co/hcm76gcpto

— Miss T Sat Apr 10 16:21:57 +0000 2021

Between vintage and modernity, did the "manufactured in France" proposed by Filt gained in recognition on the market with the crisis?

In reality, the concept of "manufactured in France" has long been an important argument of sale for export, and just over 50% of our sales are largely made thanks to this, but force isto note that it has also become so for the French for a few years.

The values it conveys, such as the impact on local employment, the lower carbon impact, the quality of the product, are in accordance with what the consumer expects today, even more in times of crisis.In this, it strengthens the trend for vintage returned in force and which has been perpetuated for some time as well, with a return to "refuges" values, recovery, simple but effective and durable products in time such as Duralex orFiat 500.

And let's not forget that the regulations itself supports the manufacture of the latter, with in particular the relatively recent ban on plastic bags for example, which has boosted the interest of consumers for alternative solutions, in particular the nets with provisions.

Is it this respect for French quality that brought together two very different companies, yours and the famous Longchamp brand, around a common project?

It is indeed a beautiful meeting, between two universes, two companies of living heritage, one with its iconic world -known folding bag, and the other with a typically French provision net.And this project was born from an unexpected phone call, that of Sophie Delafontaine, artistic director of Longchamp, who simply appreciated our net, and who had imagined this possible collaboration!A "simple and a phone call" relationship that has evolved with reciprocal confidence, with a real story to tell around a bag, valuing the same respect for the expert hands that make our products, and also, it is important,A reciprocal logic in the choice of the distribution circuit.

We have indeed chosen to offer a quality net to our customers, which is not offered in large distribution but in a selection of independent stores, in accordance with our values.Our talents are valued with the product, and the first name of each seamstress appears in each net made from his hands.People who sell our bags in stores are able to sell to the customer either a "simple" French net, but a real story.

It also works on salons, on the events thanks to which we make part of our sales, because we are both physically present on the stands.The feeling on the product is then immediate, direct contact with the customer creates a link which allows to extend and transmit this story.The product is no longer only seen as useful, it has a reason for being that goes far beyond its primary function.For the anecdote, in order to keep a link with customers that we can currently no longer meet here or abroad, we have taken advantage of a quieter period to solicit our seamstresses and offer them to call these customers, noNot in a commercial approach but simply to get their news.They accepted, and this "pleasure" communication operation turned out to be a great moment of sharing, exchange and listening for everyone.

Many textile manufacturers accelerated their digital projects during the crisis, is this also the case with Filt?

Filt is actually in full acceleration! We were previously in a building that became dilapidated, and fortunately completed our move before the health crisis;At the same time our new website was launched, in March 2020, which allowed us to be much more agile and responsive.But the transition to an e-commerce site also asked us for a much more global reflection on data management, in particular with the necessary compliance with data protection rules-the famous GDPR-or the adoption of protocolsIndispensable for securing the company's data.

Like any move, it allowed us to see certain gaps, and we have invested more than two million euros in 2019 to work in a new workshop, with functional and optimized production lines, with only electronic knitting machines,… It was essential to provide our teams with a new modern and pleasant work environment.And it has become even more important in recent months because we have been working a lot on the online putting of virtual visits to our workshops.We have even recently welcomed drones to film them from the inside!

The industry of the future is that which must adapt to the generations which arrive on the job market, it is up to us to imagine it for these new profiles, to set up the all the conditions necessary for these young people proud of theirprofessions, their knowledge and their know-how, and their factories.

Has communication via social networks become an essential component to touch customers as closely as possible, or to recruit new employees?

If before was only the name of society, today it has become a real brand, which therefore needs to strengthen its notoriety, to transmit its values, to propose a sustainable confidence contract with consumers.In the era of increasingly "bulimic" digital consumption of short and impactful information, we learn today to better use social networks that will allow us to enhance our 160 years of experience with a largeaudience.

The video is notably a universal communication medium, understandable by the greatest number around the world.It will also allow us to show young generations, connected and consumers of videos, the great modernity of our French textile workshops, even though our sector still suffers from a obsolete, aging, and too unattractive image.

Finally, as we were integrated into an industrial tourism project in our region, it is an interesting way to support projects.We also plan to develop products with QRCODE to further promote interactivity via digital.

The preservation and transmission of know-how is a global problem of the French clothing textile industry, what actions have you implemented within the Filt to manage it?

It is in the safeguarding of know-how that the digital transition has started, since we have been filming for several years all the operations carried out within the company.Most finishes and assembly are handmade for example.This video archiving project was born out of learning to our depending ones, since when we had this idea of relaunching the net to provision, knitting was not a problem but we had not anticipated the fact that we did notAvions no more skill on the specific assembly of the net within the company.We have had no choice but to request a former retired employee, who fortunately agreed to help us, to relearn and reintegrate the technique necessary at this major process of the process.

The digital transition is necessarily at the service of know-how, it cannot exist without the latter.Being able to count on this safeguarding of know-how allows us to easily train new arrivals internally, and thus be more free to recruit new employees mainly on the interpersonal skills and the behavior, the values of respect and responsibilityso essential and to which we attach very great importance.

Interview by N. RIGHI -Frevrier 2021

Visuals: filt1860