“AMEY Martin is a mix of excellent quality, natural leather, handmade exclusively in France, with contemporary touches,” say Jean Baptiste Amey and Kitesy Martin, the designers behind the young handbag label, when asked to describe its concept.

Building on the foundations of a truly Parisian aesthetic, as Paris is its home, the brand adds a futuristic aspect to its designs, for example a metal chunky shoulder strap accompanying each of their bags, in order to construct the future of this traditional aesthetic and explore new possibilities.

“As every old leather house, such as Hermès or Goyard, were really innovative and prescriptive at their beginnings, in terms of design, it was really important for us to work this way too. It is the job of luxury fashion houses to always offer innovation in terms of design and technics,” they explain. And that is what they plan to do season after season following their growing success since their launch in March 2015.

Meeting two years ago while working on rebuilding another luxury label, Amey and Martin clicked instantly and eventually decided to start their own brand together as they felt there was a gap in the market. They find working side by side challenging but very inspiring at the same time as they’ve decided not to split the work between them but do everything together: “It’s really stimulating to work on the design part as a duo. Generally we have the same universes in head, but sometimes we mix our references, our passion and our ideas.”

For their SS16 collection, the main inspiration was the ocean and Luc Besson’s 1988 film Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue) starring Jean Reno and Rosanna Arquette, centred around deep-sea diving. “We grew up with that movie. Each shot in the film is very inspiring in terms of colours, shapes and lines. We were fascinated by this universe of deep-sea diving,” the designers recall.

Therefore it’s no surprise that neoprene and rubber are the main materials used in the SS16 collection, along with ethically sourced high quality leather and python in bright colours, as well as a sophisticated textured black version which proved to be popular with their clientele.

“It is important for us to work with tanneries [where the skins are processed] that care about ethics – with the treatment of animals being raised – and about the environment. We select each skin together. The leather must have a natural touch. When you manipulate an Amey Martin handbag it’s a true sensory experience.”

Images courtesy of Amey Martin

Published 15/02/2016 at theglassmagazine.com