the story of Colette
It all began on a café terrace. Chance had invited itself along. From those coincidences, Colette Demay was born, a chocolate that starts a conversation.
the spirit
There are chocolates we save for grand occasions. Generous things, too generous at times, very sweet, that can leave the palate feeling overloaded. None of that is in question. But it is not where we began.
We wanted a chocolate that doesn't impose itself, but keeps coming back. That doesn't tire the palate, but awakens it. Obvious from the first bite, and calling for the next, without excess, without saturation. Light, barely sweet.
Hence la Larme. Five grams. Twenty-five percent sugar, and nothing more, no ganache, no cream. A chocolate made to be had again, that goes with a glass, a conversation, a moment of everyday life.
that is the spirit. Before the name, before the form.
first scene
On the terrace of a Parisian café, late in the day. The sun was sinking over the cobblestones, the wine was merely honest, the nibbles a little too salty.
Beside me, a friend from the modelling world. Suddenly my phone buzzed. A glance at the message, and I set it back down on the table. My friend noticed.
Like so many fathers, a portrait of my daughter as my wallpaper.
My friend looked at the photo and suggested, without hesitation, sending it to a few contacts. The agencies came back positive, but the one most concerned, Colette, said no.
it should have stayed nothing more than an anecdote.
second scene
A year later, I was living out an old dream: launching my own chocolate brand. I had always loved chocolate, and over time I had built real expertise, the technique, the terroirs, the aromas, the textures.
I was in the kitchen, exploring pairings with chocolate. Colette was beside me, lending a hand. For weeks I had been searching for a name for the brand, with nothing to show for it.
And I thought back to that little time capsule, the conversation on the terrace, the photo on my wallpaper, my daughter's refusal to become a coat hanger. Her name imposed itself, obvious.
third scene
We had to draw a logo, set a charter, give a visual architecture to what was still only an intuition. We were after a shape, a signature. Something iconic and obvious at once.
We had worked the shape, the weight, the perfect size for the mouth. Five grams. It was all there, except one thing: elegance.
And once again, chance invited itself. Studying the logo, my eye caught an almost invisible detail: inside the A of Demay, a shape appeared. Discreet. Elongated. Slender.
I knew it at once, the shape that would become the silhouette of our chocolates: a suspended teardrop, pure form, drawn upward, like a moment stretching out. Almost identical to the one we had drawn, but for that base, finished, elegant.
and so la Larme de Colette was born.
the A — already a teardrop Histograph, in capitals. The shape was inscribed in the letter.
la Larme, final drawn downward, elegant base. 5 g · 43.19 × 25.01 × 12.5 mm.
coda
A message on a terrace. A name found again in the kitchen. A shape hidden in a letter. What should have stayed an anecdote became our brand.
Every Larme placed on the tongue carries this story, the presence of a daughter, the patience of a father, the elegance of a detail that asked only to be seen.
