Founded with the desire to bring prestige back to school uniforms, the label Bleu comme gris was launched in Paris in 2008. Today the line is a reference for parents as well as schools wishing for beautiful uniforms for their students. Following the success of the uniform collection, artistic director Vanessa Marrapodi decided to expand the brand’s range – offering a beautiful selection of everyday, casual and smart, tailored clothing for boys, girls and infants. With subtle colours and contemporary touches the brand quickly became a must-have for!
We were excited to chat with the Bleu Comme Gris team in today’s designer Q&A!
What inspired the name of your label?
In Europe Bleu (blue) and Gris (grey) are the colours of school uniforms and we began with a school uniform collection. Also, there is a poem by Paul Eluard with the title Bleu comme une Orange so we mixed both to create the name Bleu comme gris!
Why did you decide to design for children?
I always find children clothes more cute than adult one; the details are more interesting.
What is your brand’s mission statement or goal?
Our goal is to develop an international brand with our shops in every main city of the world; we already have several shops in Paris and we will open in Bruxelles and London this year.
What are your motivations or inspirations behind the design? Is there a style decade you are inspired by? Each Season is a new challenge, we try to sense the spirit of the times but with two rules: chic and timeless.
How does your design process differ when designing for boys vs girls?
It is the same process as boy collection; 50% of the collection we offer boys has colours and prints as the girl’s collection.
Do you believe fashion/style is important for children?
Of course they have same aspirations as parents!
What do you have coming up that you are really exited about?
Each winter collection is more exciting than summer because we have our choice of nice fabric and we can offer large collection of knitwear. This is for design part, regarding business we are always exciting by new opening shops!
What is your favourite piece from your current collection? Its our Parka Siberie with removable rabbit lining. We began with one colour and now we produce 5 different colours and each season we add new colours…it is really our best seller!