I’ve known the brand De Bonne Facture for a long time, seeing them at stockists like Trunk and No Man Walks Alone over the years, and chatting to the founder Déborah Neuberg over dinner or at Pitti.
I’ve also admired their philosophy when it comes to materials and manufacturing. Most things are deliberately made in France, and they use natural, often beautifully textured materials. Both very Permanent Style attributes.
The reason I haven’t covered them in the past is that the style seemed less fitting – bigger silhouettes, high-rise trousers, looser knitwear. But as PS has broadened its coverage, taking in more casual clothes as well as widening the style spectrum, De Bonne has seemed increasingly relevant.
The brand itself has also evolved. When it occurred to me we should cover them, and I looked at recent collections online, they seemed to be more expressive and unusual, with more unique and luxurious materials. Weirdly, that characterisation seemed to come up again and again when I interviewed Deborah at Pitti and then spoke to friends and stockists at Pitti.
“One of the biggest changes has been the increase in e-commerce since Covid, taking over from wholesale,” Deborah said when we met. “It’s been going really well, and it’s given me more confidence in our designs.
“Wholesale can be quite conservative sometimes, only taking the things they’ve sold before or things they know will do well. You can design lots of interesting pieces, but if buyers don’t pick it up then it never gets out there.”
One example Deborah gave of an unusual piece was the brown checked coat I’m wearing below, which is in a super-soft baby llama cloth. As with all De Bonne pieces, it’s big and unstructured, so rather different to most coats we cover, but I know it will appeal to many readers.
(Remember, pieces shown at Pitti in January are for the next Autumn/Winter, so this coat wouldn’t be on sale until later this year.)
“We’ve done more luxurious fabrics too. We’ve always done the grandad coat for example, but last year we did it in camelhair [below]. The price was €2500 and I was scared of ordering too many,” Deborah says.
“At the end I actually got a call from the factory saying there was enough material to make one more, and I agonised over whether to do it. But in the end they all sold really well. It made me feel like we’re going in the right direction online.
“Everyone suffers from a little imposter syndrome and I’ve definitely felt that – a woman designing menswear, doing things that were less of the moment – so how things are received by our customers always makes a difference.
Deborah is aware of how mainstream her designs have become. “Back when we started 12 years ago, our silhouettes were much more unusual – the balloon trousers, the big raglan coats, everything comfortable and relaxed. Now a lot of those shapes are more standard; we were kind of ahead of the curve.”
Over the years De Bonne has attracted a very loyal following, perhaps because of that consistency of style but also because of its approach to production. In fact, Deborah said a customer recently forwarded her our article on being a patron, saying that was how they felt about her clothes.
“We have an interesting range of customers. There’s the artistic type, someone like Bent [Van Looy] perhaps. Then there are the academics, who want to be that bit smarter but also relaxed – the geography teacher jacket is sort of named after them. But then there are tech guys now, who like clothes but don’t really want to wear a suit to work.”
Given how I dress, most of the De Bonne trousers aren’t really my style. But I would wear the coats, and the fleece I’m trying above was really nice – in pure wool rather than synthetic, which is very typical and in some ways makes them similar to Drake’s, though more focused in their production and more organic in their colour palette.
De Bonne knitwear is also beautiful, always textured. The shapes tend to be a little longer and wider, but that relaxed look definitely suits some people, as Bent demonstrated in his recent reader profile (below).
“The brand appeals to me a lot,” he told me at the time. “It’s very romantic, very literary, very referential. It’s also come into its own in recent years I think.
“In the beginning it seemed less clear what it was going to be, it was very natural, very simple. But now they have this range of models that will reoccur in different materials; they’ve built up their universe beautifully. They’ve become more like themselves perhaps.”
Several others, including a couple of stockists, said something similar.
Of all the De Bonne clothes I’d wear the shirts and overshirts most, which have a similarly relaxed style to a brand like Casatlantic – though generally better made (example below).
In fact quality is an interesting point because it’s easy to miss. The De Bonne clothes are very well, cleanly made, and the prices can seem a little high until you appreciate this and the materials. “So much of it is a matter of context,” says Deborah. I was always afraid we were too expensive, but then a customer told me they thought we were very cheap – because she bought The Row.”
Deborah has also been through a few changes personally, having had twins and taken a step back from the business for a while. She opened the brand’s first shop-cum-office just before Covid as well, in Paris’s 11th arrondissement.
I’m glad to say everything seems to be going well now – not just from my and Deborah’s perspective, but in the eyes of stockists. I spoke to several at Pitti and they all – almost freakishly – repeated the same points about recent collections.
