Arthur de la Roche
Vulnéraire



(2024) 6 weeks project for Paraboot 

In late 2023, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Paraboot, one of the most renowned and historic French shoemaking companies.

The brand tasked my class at Strate École de Design with designing new products using only surplus leather from their manufacturing process. This project allowed us to explore sustainable design by repurposing leftover materials.

We visited their factory in Voirons near Grenoble at the bottom of the french Alps, where we learned about the brand’s heritage and the qualities of the materials. Paraboot provided us with leather offcuts, which we used to create our prototypes.


Pictures by Lucas Lorigeon

After visiting the Paraboot factory, I was inspired to create something that would reflect the brand's rich history, expertise, and craftsmanship. While researching further, I explored the broader context of the region and discovered another iconic company in the same area with a deep tradition of craftsmanship: Chartreuse.

Chartreuse is considered the oldest continuously produced liqueur, renowned worldwide for its secret recipe, which incorporates over 150 herbs and has been passed down through generations of Chartreux monks. 

I decided to design a leather cover for the Chartreuse bottle and began exploring the appropriate form. During my research, I came across the "vulnéraire des Chartreux," a flower native to the region and used in the production of Chartreuse. Recognizing its significance, I knew this would be the ideal shape for my leather bottle cover design.