How many of us would have a hand carved silver console in our living rooms? Or a cashmere rug placed on the bedroom floor? Or a plethora paintings scattered artfully across the walls? Not many of us, unless we happen to have a particularly refined taste and enough money to fill a chateau.
Thankfully for Augustin Rousseau, he did have both of these things. He hadn’t tried filling up his little Toulouse mansion with money (yet) but we can be fairly confident it would be full with some room to spare. Maybe he’d be able to fill the swimming pool as well with the launch of his next furniture collection.
The British know how to organise, the German know how to build and the French know neither, but they sure know how to live. Not true for every single frenchman, of course, but certainly for this one. None of that talk of humbleness, austerity and socialism. Augustin was only humble insofar as boasting about how humble he is, with a completely deadpan tone. No irony here.
And oh Dieu did Augustin know how to live. The Toulousian designer had an eye for the fabulously expensive, the more zeros the better as long as it didn’t veer into the realm of crass. There’s a fine line between lavish elegance and sheer lack of class, and that’s one he knew to walk.
You can’t be a designer without being immersed in the style you wish to create, and Augustin’s chateau was nothing but a particularly ostentatious piece of art. Stepping into the carved oak behemoth of a front door, you instantly know this is the person who brings outrageous, witty designs into people’s homes. It could only be someone whose home is as outrageously witty as this one. The hand sewed Milanese curtains, the little obsidian cat sculpture standing guard near the fireplace, and a white flag in the study where the French tricolore would traditionally be. Never let it be said that French can’t have a laugh at themselves.
But it’s not just the immediate surroundings that inspire the best designers, it’s their roots and the values they hold dear. This might be a difficult task for someone associated with a new, soulless city but Toulouse is neither. A walk along the town centre reveals a village more than a city; where people are friendly and little shops display their quaint wares in stained windows. Several of these host Augustin’s furniture, he’s nowhere as famous as he is in his home town.
So how does this designer combine his immediate lavish surroundings and the laidback, calm nature of Toulouse? Simple — affordable, understated luxury. Taking the outrageous carving of his ivory dresser and the little peaks and troughs of the Toulousian terrain, you get a subtly waved console that fits right in to the average French home while emanating echoes of subtle elegance. It doesn’t get much more Rousseau than that.
Nothing can tell you more about how Augustin designs furniture than his ‘studio’. It’s simply a glass covered observatory at the very top of the mansion that overlooks the cobbled streets and grand cathedrals of Toulouse in one, uninterrupted view. When you cast a glance at one of his stained glass mirrors, it’s impossible not to note the inspiration from the cathedral de Saint-Etienne. Perhaps a touch less grand for obvious reasons, but still worth a trek to see.
Or maybe you’re more interested in nature. Living in a large-but-not-massive European city means that rolling greens and little rivers are never far away — especially if the city happens to be Toulouse. Several of Augustin’s collections were inspired by walks taken along a path less taken. How else would an indoor, domesticated armoire happen to be painted a dark green hue with foliage splattered on its visage? The countryside, to be imprecise, is a stone’s throw away from Augustin’s observatory. One foot in the town, the other in the country. Taking steps towards an amalgam has become his trademark.
The observatory is where you’d find Augustin most days, after a cup of coffee of course — espresso, no milk. No wonder he stays up there all day, until the light fades, tinkering and drawing on his little chalkboard until he’s satisfied. Or the chalkboard is full. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
On one of his nightly strolls along the town centre, Augustin sat down on his favourite chair, in his favourite café, ordering his favourite meal (duck confit, with extra dark sauce au chocolat). When you have so much on your mind and so much to create, a bit of routine is rather welcome. So Augustin’s favourite café was also his only café, unless particularly fancy guests came to town. And that fateful duck confit was to provide the backdrop to a monumental change.
One of the reasons why Augustin frequented this place, despite his well publicised love for luxury and €300 dinners, was the fact that he could eat in peace without any of his creations haunting him. It was a refuge from the fame, the glamour, the Rousseau. It was a safe haven but that day it was shattered. One of his silver carved stools, just sitting in the corner, innocent of the knowledge that a storm was about to be unleashed.
This was the moment when Augustin realised that Toulouse was too small a fish for him, if his local café with it’s worn leather and ash darkened walls could host his furniture, he needed to move out of his comfort zone. Expand beyond being a Toulousian designer.
But how? His fame reached far but narrow —furniture enthusiasts, people acquainted in the home decor world, and almost everyone in and around Toulouse. He’d saturated his target market, so it was time to look beyond. For that he needed a partner. There’s only so much someone can do when they only sell under their own label. Great for exclusivity, not so much to reach a wider audience.
He realised that the best way to go about this was to look for some sort of supplier, a dropshipper perhaps, who could provide the goods to loads of independent business. Affordable luxury doesn’t count for much if the only brands who sell his label are expensive, snobby affairs.
And he might just have found the perfect one. A London based dropshipper, backed by artisans in the Indian city of Jaipur. A European company with Asian roots, perfect to add a new dimension to the collection of a quintessentially small-town French designer. He’d have much liked to work with a Frenchman he’d once offered a cigar to at one of his garden soirées, but he knew he had to move out of his comfort zone. This was as far as he could get without losing his touch on the collection completely.
The way he found the dropshipper was just as incredible as his furniture. Browsing through websites one autumn evening, stuck inside his house as the pandemic finally hit Toulouse, one phrase pulled him from his wine fuelled stupor. “Pink City” — Jaipur, the place where the company manufactured its goods, had the same moniker as Toulouse. From the Pink City to La Ville Rose. It’d make for great marketing.
The name drew him to look deeper into the company, one that promised sustainable growth and support for local artisans communities. A family run affair, all backed by a handiwork focussed operation. It was just the dropshipper he needed, one whose ethos matched with his own. All that was left was to drop them an email and wait for their response. When you’re Augustin Rousseau, it’s a matter of when rather than if.
Fittingly enough, the reply came when he was eating a plate of duck confit in the dining room. Just because the café is closed doesn’t mean they can’t deliver, and even if they can’t, they’d definitely make an exception for him. The company would be delighted to work with him and wanted some designs to start manufacturing, as soon as the logistics were sorted out. Augustin had just the idea.
What’s something Toulousian but famous around the world? Planes. Airbus, to be specific. His next big thing was to be an airplane inspired furniture range, hawking Toulouse’s biggest export to the global stage. Metallic chairs with sharp corners, tubular coffee tables, even pieces made out of aircraft scrap metal. It was something wildly new, utterly ridiculous and completely Augustin Rousseau.
Big ideas need big marketing, so Augustin spread the word among his designer friends and even bought space at the Maison d’Objet at Paris. It was his futuristic collection yet, and his most outlandish. It only needed a bit of marketing to create a buzz in France — his dropshipper did the rest across the channel.
tThe fuselage of a decommissioned Airbus plane he bought to display on his mansion lawn may have helped as well. He’d always been larger than life, Augustin. With his talent and burgeoning clientele, he had the ability to build an independent business up almost singlehandedly. Or tear it down.
When the collection was in full flight and independent retailers started stocking it across the world, Augustin took a little holiday to Paris. Well not quite a holiday, just a trip to meet his dropshipper at a local furniture fair. But who says you can’t have fun on a business trip?
And fun he certainly had; spending a couple of days at a friend’s place away from all the media attention and clickbait articles on the internet. But when he noticed one of his embarrassed-looking little metal trays in his friend’s study, inspired by those on the Airbus, he knew he’d made it once again. Perhaps it was time for a new adventure.