“Back in 2008, I was spending time at my family house in Ain, France and decided to go through the attic before its renovation. As I was going up there, I was sure to find amazing things, treasures from my grand-parents’ past. 

I wasn't disappointed when I ran into the small leather satchel, a “Baise-en-ville” model that my great grand-father used to transport his small medical equipment during the 1940s. He had given it to my grand-father, and it seemed that he left it there for me to find one day. The satchel has survived all this time and its robust leather carries the marks of the past and the story of my family. 

    

    

It was not long before I realized how useful the satchel was. Its small size made it really practical to handle and carry everywhere. It came in handy when I started wearing suits, jackets and more elegant clothes. The problem is that your pockets and the fabric wear out and you quickly feel uncomfortable when you have to fill up your pockets with your wallet, smartphone… This “Baise-en-Ville” satchel provided me with an elegant and practical solution to this problem!

As you may see, I fell in love with my great grand-father’s “BEV”, its history, its simplicity and its usefulness, and I wanted to keep on writing the story of the satchel. 

To my big surprise, the “BEV” had totally disappeared from man fashion but does bring a solution to a lot of a man’s issues when he wants to dress sharply and elegantly and still needs to carry some things around. That’s why I decided to gather a small team of young and willing entrepreneurs to help me share my discovery and this little piece of history I found and create this brand: De Rigueur.

Then, we worked on the design of the BEV, so that it would fit the everyday needs of the modern man: carrying an iPad, with an adjustable leather strap and an inside pocket to put your flat documents (ID, credit cards...).

Once we had a precise idea of what we wanted, we went to meet many and many stakeholders of the leather industry: cutting tools manufacturers, metallic parts sellers, tanneries, leather skins providers, craftsmen (and of course bankers, insurers, accountants...). That's when the story of De Rigueur really began.”

 

Adrien Deslous-Paoli, founder of the brand.