For one week, ISLI took over a corner of the Monoprix store in Montparnasse. It was the first time our pieces stood in front of a completely new audience, outside our own channels and our own customers, and the response told us a great deal.
A young studio inside a French institution
Monoprix has been part of daily French life for generations. Its shoppers are not there to discover an independent jewellery label, which is exactly why the exercise was worth doing. Our stand had to hold its own among the ordinary rhythm of a store people visit every week.
The colour did the talking. Customers stopped, picked pieces up, turned them over, asked where they were made and who made them. Being carried, even briefly, by a house that established gave the brand a kind of visibility a studio of our size rarely gets to buy.
A workshop, not just a display
Halfway through the week we ran an earring design workshop. Visitors sat down with us, chose shapes, and assembled a pair with their own hands. Some arrived knowing exactly what they wanted, others rebuilt the same pair three times.
Watching people make those choices taught us more about how our shapes are read than any amount of guessing could. Which forms people reach for first, which colours they hesitate over, what they consider too much and what they consider not enough.
What we kept from it
The week ended, the corner came down, and we went back to Casablanca with a clearer idea of who we are speaking to. Meeting an audience that owes you nothing is the fastest way to find out whether the work stands up. Ours did, and we would do it again.