Juliette Angeletti, leather architect

How can you differentiate yourself in the highly competitive world of high-end leather goods compared to the luxury giants? By creating numbered handcrafted pieces that escape mass production. After a long career in the media, particularly in advertising and digital publishing, Juliette Angeletti embarked on a career change and trained in leatherwork, in order to master the gestures and techniques of the profession. At the end of a long process, she obtained the status of art craftswoman.

Handmade work has always fascinated this great-granddaughter of the official jeweler of Tsar Nicholas II. In 2019, she founded her own brand, Phi 1.618, focusing on French manufacturing. « The name Phi 1.618 refers to the golden ratio, known since ancient times as the most elegant proportion in nature. The Greek sculptor Phidias materialized it for the first time in the Parthenon. Gothic cathedrals were built following this rule. she explains.

Each of his creations – bags, belts and accessories – respects this proportion, which “ gives a certain accuracy and harmony to the pieces “. The craftswoman creates her own prototypes and allows herself bold innovations: a 2 millimeter thick bag that can be unfolded and stored flat, reversible belts or even a curved pouch, structured like a small box reminiscent of the shape of a shell.

Juliette Angeletti collaborates with a workshop in Touraine to manufacture her pieces in the tradition of saddlemaking know-how. The leathers used are whole skins, full grain leather, coming from unused stocks of major luxury houses. One of his most notable creations is a pleated memory bag, made from a single piece of leather. An artisanal feat which requires the development of a specific cardboard mold for each piece. Difficult to duplicate, therefore.