Creative Changemakers: Rue du Paradis
Welcome to our new interview series, Creative Changemakers. Every month, we will be speaking to a different business owner who is using creativity as a tool to build community and create change!
This month, we spoke with Fanny Karaman, the bubbly and incredibly warm owner of Rue du Paradis, a high-end, bespoke lingerie brand. We’re so excited to kick this series off with Fanny, who embodies the kind of changemaker that we want to bring more visibility to. Fanny isn’t just teaching you how to sew a bralette, she’s hoping to influence the lingerie industry to be more size-inclusive! When you come to Rue du Paradis, you’re not just making your own lingerie; you’re embracing your body, meeting new friends, and learning in a supportive environment! Check out rueduparadislingerie.com to book your workshop.
The following is transcribed from an in-person interview between Jane (co-founder of The Creative Directory) and Fanny Karaman. This interview has been edited for length.
A post shared from @_thecreativedirectory Instagram account
What was the inspiration behind Rue du Paradis?
"What inspired me to start the brand is, well, first the discovery of French lace, the know-how behind the beauty and the history that goes into the making of this particular fabric, which is what we use here to make our lingerie. And then, coupled with, you know, a big item that was always weighing [on] my mind is the heaviness of the media on our mental health. This image of beauty that [the media] portrays and that they hold above us as an ideal to reach, but we just don't look like that. Most of us don't look like that.
We'll never look like that, and it's perfectly fine! So the idea behind Rue du Paradis is really to combine the beauty and the historical know-how that goes into the making of our raw material with the more psychological aspect that goes towards nurturing the beauty that we all already have in us.”
Where does the name, Rue du Paradis, come from?
“The name of the company, Rue du Paradis, comes from the name of the street in Paris that is super, super cute, that is called Rue de Paradis.
And a friend of mine, a very good childhood friend, used to work for a big advertising company in France. Her and I were sitting somewhere having an aperitif in Paris, and thinking about the name of my future brand. And we were on a boulevard, so obviously, we couldn't use the [word] “boulevard”-something [for] a lingerie brand. We started thinking about cute street names that we like in Paris, and [we realized] she was living very close to that street in Paris, Rue de Paradis.
And so I just tweaked the de to a du and it became Rue du Paradis, which means Paradise Street in French!”
If someone is coming to Rue du Paradis for the first time, what should they expect?
“My hope with Rue du Paradis, and more specifically the workshops that we are offering, is that from the moment you schedule your workshop to the moment you actually leave with your piece, you have had not only a very fulfilling experience but also you have coupled that with a very cocooning moment. You then learn something, you learn a new skill, you meet, hopefully, very nice people who are also attending the workshop and at the end, you get to try it on! Having the feeling of something that's so bespoke, like really catering to your unique body, seeing yourself in it, and understanding that YOU with your own hands, made that! Well, that's a very uplifting feeling [that] I hope that we're able to give to you.
What does creativity mean to you?
“Creativity to me means thinking outside the box but not forcing yourself to be like this original person [that’s] coming up with the next big idea. It's just truly, truly being aligned with yourself, understanding what you want to do, where you want to go and then implementing that and not listening to others telling you that it's not. That for me is creativity.”
What does being a changemaker mean to you?
“To me, being a change maker is slow [and] steady. It's a growth that you attain to fill a void, to make something better, to change something [for] the better. [But] it's not something you do alone. It's something that is done within a community, with a community, or with several communities. All the people that feel the need for that change, we will change things together.
Of course, I want to revolutionize the world of lingerie but I'm not going to do that alone!”
What is your biggest challenge as a business owner?
“First it's the financial aspect, especially at the beginning, you have ups, you have downs, [so] it's reaching at least the minimum constants that allow you and [your team] to live nicely. Then the second one is finding beautiful humans that are happy working with the brand and that can make the brand grow. It's really the human aspect behind the brand [that is] a challenge because you want to nurture it to have a good base, a good and solid basis for growth.
BONUS! Check out some fun bloopers from our time with Fanny. To get the video content, you’ll have to subscribe to our Substack
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