Colette
Genesis
Before becoming a house of chocolate, Colette was a presence.
I was writing a television series when, on a day off from school, she accompanied me to a meeting. A friend, then coming from the world of modeling agencies, looked at her attentively. She suggested taking a few photographs and sent them to bookers. The interest was immediate. Except for the one most concerned. The episode remained light, almost anecdotal.
Time passed. Two years later, as I was searching for the right balance in a truffle recipe, that memory came back to me. Colette was there, by my side, in the trials, the hesitations, the successes. Without knowing it, she was accompanying the birth of a universe.
Her name imposed itself as an obvious choice.
The Form of an Obvious Truth
Then came the time for lines.
We had to design a logo, establish a graphic charter, and give a visual structure to what was still just an intuition. We were looking for a form, a signature. Something iconic and obvious at the same time.
And once again, chance intervened.
While observing the logo that Laetitia had just created, my gaze fell upon an almost invisible detail: inside the A of Demay, a shape appeared…Discreet, elongated, slender.
I recognized it immediately, the one that would become the silhouette of our chocolates: a suspended tear, a pure form, stretched downwards, like a moment that stretches out.
This is how our signature was born.
Entering into Excellence
I did not come from the world of gastronomy.
I had been a musician, a composer. My universe was one of notes and silences, not of brigades nor the codes of haute cuisine.
And yet, I had to enter. Without a network. Without introduction. Without legitimacy.
Haute gastronomy is a demanding world, almost closed. Excellence there is not an ambition: it is an obligation. Every detail counts.
Doors had to be knocked on, often closed ones. Observe. Remain silent. Begin again.
Then a man crossed our path. A former talented cook, driven by the same obsession for what is right, he immediately understood the project: to create a chocolate capable of dialoguing with the greatest wines, champagnes, and spirits.
He passed on to us his eye and his rigor.
Excellence is not conquered. It is shaped.
The encounters that matter
A project never succeeds alone.
It succeeds when it meets people who share the same standards, the same obsessions, the same values — even if the paths to reach them are different.
It is not methods that unite, but the level of demand.
My encounters were of that kind.
Looks that do not compromise.
Hands that know that a detail is never just a detail.
A house is not born from consensus.
It is not born from compromise.
It is born from energy.
The Tear
From all these encounters, these learnings, these confrontations, these demands…It had to take a simple, pure, obvious form.
A suspended gesture, like a restrained emotion. Neither demonstrative nor decorative, simply essential.
She was not a symbol, she was a consequence.
Thus, the tear was born.
