Gunning for Success

A TRIP TO PARIS isn't complete without a visit to cult brand Fauré Le Page's store on 21, Rue Cambon. Since it reopened its boutique in one of the city's most affluent fashion streets in 2012, the brand has been firmly on the radar of fashion insiders, thanks to general manager and artistic director Augustin de Buffévent, who acquired the house in 2011. He closed down its first store in Rue de Richelieu and reopened it in Rue Cambon a year later. Today, there are nine boutiques, including its soon-to-open flagship in Singapore - also the brand's first in Southeast Asia.

Pronounced as fo-ray-le-pahj, the brand was actually conceived more than 300 years ago, in 1717, during the early reign of King Louis XV. Fauré Le Page started out as a master gunsmith to kings and princes providing weapons and accessories to the European courts. In fact, some of the brand's first bags were designed for men for hunting purposes or on the battlefield.

Determined to preserve the brand's colourful gunsmith heritage, Mr De Buffévent dug through the brand's archives to see how he could reinterpret the designs to give them a fresh and modern take. ''It goes through a writing process,'' he says.