{"id":170647,"date":"2026-07-06T10:44:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T14:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/?p=170647"},"modified":"2026-07-06T13:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T17:30:13","slug":"how-lou-de-betoly-built-a-slower-fashion-cycle-through-crochet-and-craftsmanship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/?p=170647","title":{"rendered":"How Lou de B\u00e8toly Built a Slower Fashion Cycle Through Crochet and Craftsmanship"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>\n.centerimg {padding:4em 7em;margin:20px 0;}\n.centerimg2 {padding:4em 4em;margin:20px 0;}\n.centerimg3 {padding:4em 3em;margin:20px 0;}\n.sidetxt {padding:16em 2em 16em 2em;;margin:20px 0;}\n.centerimg img {margin-bottom:0px;}\n.instagram-media {margin:auto !important;}\n#wp-content hr {margin: 40px auto 80px auto;width: 80%;}\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"centerimg\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/20260218_04_1339_V2_RGB.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"1690\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-170652\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/20260218_04_1339_V2_RGB.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/20260218_04_1339_V2_RGB-485x640.jpg 485w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/20260218_04_1339_V2_RGB-969x1280.jpg 969w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/20260218_04_1339_V2_RGB-1163x1536.jpg 1163w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><br \/>\n<small> Hunter Pifer by Tim Walker for Lampoon Magazine | Image courtesy of Lou de B\u00e8toly <\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p>Textiles and handcraft have been second nature to <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/people\/odely-teboul\">Od\u00e9ly Teboul<\/a> since she was five years old. The French designer has always been drawn to things that are odd, a little bizarre, or not quite how they should be, and built an entire label around that instinct: <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/client\/lou-de-betoly\">Lou de B\u00e8toly<\/a> is an anagram of her own birth name. That path led her to study haute couture at ESMOD, then into the atelier of <a href=\"https:\/\/models.com\/client\/jean-paul-gaultier\">Jean Paul Gaultier<\/a>, where she worked on knitwear collections, embroidery, and hand-knit development for couture, in an era that was still deeply analog. It was a formative time that gave her the technical foundation to launch her first brand, Augustin Teboul, with a business partner. They followed the conventional path many young designers take: wholesale, chasing a certain number of stores, PR, &#8220;hitting the marks everyone tells you to hit,&#8221; as Teboul puts it. When they eventually closed the label, it marked the start of something entirely her own. <\/p>\n<p>Teboul launched <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/client\/lou-de-betoly\">Lou de B\u00e8toly<\/a> in 2018, a brand that resists the pace of the traditional fashion cycle altogether. Staying true to her love of working with her hands, Lou de B\u00e8toly is built around small-scale, one-of-a-kind, and custom pieces: crocheted, embroidered, beaded, and pieced together from vintage scraps and found objects, blending romance with something quietly idiosyncratic. Her cult following extends well beyond the runway, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DKWqSXstQz0\/?img_index=2\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> wore a custom piece on the Cowboy Carter tour, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DYnlbmYDQIZ\/?img_index=1\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Charli xcx<\/a> wore the brand in her <a href=\"https:\/\/models.com\/work\/music-video-charli-xcx---ss26\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SS26 music video<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DUh3ovpjWUP\/?img_index=1\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rosal\u00eda<\/a> has also supported the brand. Much of the material in her work comes from her own life. For her <a href=\"https:\/\/models.com\/work\/lou-de-btoly-fw-26-show-berlin\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">F\/W 26 collection unveiled in Berlin<\/a>, she returned to a box of buttons she&#8217;d bought as a kid, one that had sat at her parents&#8217; house for years, and reworked every single one by hand. &#8220;There&#8217;s something meditative in the repetition,&#8221; Teboul says. &#8220;It&#8217;s not about working fast. It&#8217;s about pushing something slowly until it becomes intricate, and I think there&#8217;s real poetry in that, in all the hours that go into beading and crocheting. It lets me be a kind of poet. It&#8217;s also about rethinking the value of time, of life.&#8221; Models.com spoke with the designer a few weeks before she presented her exhibition during Berlin Fashion Week, on how she sources her materials, who she imagines wearing her clothes, and the freedom that comes with creating on her own timeline rather than the industry&#8217;s calendar. <\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/loud-images.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-170671\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/loud-images.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/loud-images-640x427.jpg 640w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/loud-images-1280x853.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/loud-images-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><br \/>\n<small> Nyagoa Diu + Qianyu by<a href=\"https:\/\/models.com\/people\/verity-smiley-jones\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Verity Smiley-Jones<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/models.com\/work\/lou-de-btoly-aw26\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lou de B\u00e8toly&#8217;s F\/W 26 collection<\/a> | Image courtesy of Lou de B\u00e8toly<\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>What were your earliest memories of fashion and how did they shape the way you think about clothing today?<\/strong><br \/>\nI was born in &#8217;85, so my earliest memories are from the late eighties. What I remember most clearly as a child is the idea of what looks like bad taste, or what looks weird. Odd color combinations stuck with me, navy blue with black, for example. I thought it was strange. I think that&#8217;s carried into my work today. I&#8217;m still drawn to what feels a bit bizarre, or not exactly how it should be. Very subtly, but I think that&#8217;s the connection.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You eventually went to  \u00c9cole Sup\u00e9rieure des Arts et Techniques de la Mode (ESMOD). Did you always want to study fashion or art, or did you have another career in mind?<\/strong><br \/>\nI was fascinated by textiles from very early on. I started doing handicrafts at around five years old, embroidery, then cross-stitch, then crocheting. It was a steady passion, something I genuinely enjoyed. I remember saying as a kid that I wanted to become a fashion designer, so it was always somewhere in my mind. I started in Paris with a specialization in haute couture, which involved a lot of handcraft.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your work resists the pace of the traditional fashion cycle. Was that a deliberate decision from the start, and what inspired you to launch the brand?<\/strong><br \/>\nBefore Lou de B\u00e8toly, I had another brand, Augustin Teboul with a German business partner. We worked together for a few years in a fairly conventional way, built around wholesale twice a year. We were chasing what success is supposed to look like as a designer, reaching a certain number of stores, doing the right PR, and hitting the marks everyone tells you to hit. In 2018, my business partner wanted to stop, and that year I launched my solo project. The initial idea was simple, I wanted to do something that made sense to me. I&#8217;d reached a saturation point with the commercial model, the constant push to produce more, sell more, make things cheaper so everyone can wear them. That way of working is full of compromise. I wanted to work without it. It&#8217;s an ambitious, even naive thing to aim for, and I think it takes a long time and a lot of courage to find the answers. If you&#8217;re the only one doing something a certain way, it can feel strange. But sometimes the things that don&#8217;t quite make sense on the surface lead you to answers that do. I&#8217;m very good at intricate work and not very good at making a plain white t-shirt, unfortunately. So, I focus on what I&#8217;m actually able to do.<\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/IMG_1747.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"948\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-170666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/IMG_1747.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/IMG_1747-640x474.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><br \/>\n<small> Rosal\u00eda | Image courtesy of Lou de B\u00e8toly<\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>That&#8217;s admirable, especially for an emerging brand. You&#8217;re not compromising your own process and skill for what the industry expects, and a lot of brands don&#8217;t have that freedom today.<\/strong><br \/>\nThank you. I think what interests me most is the making itself, working hands-on. I work on a smaller scale with unique and custom pieces. I do a little wholesale too, but I think what draws me to this scale is that we&#8217;re living in a moment of complete saturation. We&#8217;re surrounded by goods. It&#8217;s worth asking what we actually want at the end of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Going back to the craft side of things, you&#8217;ve spoken about enjoying constraint, working with materials you already have. When does a constraint become a creative driver rather than a limitation?<\/strong><br \/>\nThis might be personal, but I think it holds for a lot of people. Restriction pushes an idea further. Speaking for myself, the hardest thing is being handed a blank page and told to create something. That&#8217;s far more difficult than working within a restriction. Having material in hand and not immediately knowing what to do with it opens up so many directions. What can this object become, and how many ways can you interpret it? I repeat certain elements every season. Crochet is always there, I work with old underwear. I try to push it further each time, it&#8217;s the same starting point, but how do I say something new with it? A bit like variations on a classical theme, always building off something. The line is thin, but if I had to sum it up, restriction is a good creative drive for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You produce the majority of your pieces by hand, working across embroidery, crochet, and knitwear. What does that level of handcraft let you express that other methods can&#8217;t?<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen I start developing something, the first thing I turn to is the textile, the material itself. I don&#8217;t sketch a collection plan and then source materials to match it. I start with the textile, and a lot of the time I create my own. The real satisfaction is in blending different techniques until you can&#8217;t immediately place what you&#8217;re looking at. There&#8217;s confusion in a good way. Beyond that, there&#8217;s something meditative in the repetition. It&#8217;s not about working fast. It&#8217;s about pushing something slowly until it becomes intricate, and I think there&#8217;s real poetry in that, in all the hours that go into beading and crocheting. It lets me be a kind of poet. It&#8217;s also about rethinking the value of time, of life.<\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/PXL_20260427_125150081.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"1707\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-170667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/PXL_20260427_125150081.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/PXL_20260427_125150081-480x640.jpg 480w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/PXL_20260427_125150081-960x1280.jpg 960w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/PXL_20260427_125150081-1152x1536.jpg 1152w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><br \/>\n<small> Od\u00e9ly Teboul | Image courtesy of Lou de B\u00e8toly<\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>How do you go about sourcing or creating those materials?<\/strong><br \/>\nIt depends. Sometimes someone brings me something and my studio fills up with it. There&#8217;s a kind of anxiety in that, in accumulating things and needing to use them to make room. Some materials sit around for a year or two or three before an idea comes. For my past<a href=\"https:\/\/models.com\/work\/lou-de-btoly-fw-26-show-berlin\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> F\/W 26 collection<\/a>, I worked with hair color swatch cards, the kind my childhood hairdresser gave to my mother. I had to figure out how to interpret them, how to avoid a literal translation and push toward something more surreal instead. I also worked with buttons, which is such a common material that everyone&#8217;s used them at some point. Someone brought me a box, and it reminded me of a huge box of buttons I bought as a kid that stayed at my parents&#8217; house. I went back for it, sorted through it, and started experimenting: how do I make a Lou de B\u00e8toly button? I ended up crocheting each one, essentially knitting a button. Other times it&#8217;s not about an object at all. It might start with a knit sample that I re-crochet and then embellish. I usually drape it on the mannequin, photograph it, and visualize it on the body from there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You&#8217;ve worked with <a href=\"https:\/\/models.com\/people\/tim-heyduck\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Heyduck <\/a> across a lot of your collections. How would you describe your collaboration, and how does his styling shape the final narrative?<\/strong><br \/>\nI started working with Tim near the beginning of the brand. He&#8217;s co-founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/gruppemagazine\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gruppe Magazine<\/a>, and I met him through an editorial request for the magazine when it was still new. His visual world felt so different from mine that I thought the clash could be interesting. There&#8217;s something very romantic and feminine in my work, the beading, the sheer fabrics, and his perspective brings a kind of toughness to it. He consults on the shows; the styling, the concept, sometimes the creative direction, essentially shaping the visual world for Lou de B\u00e8toly. It&#8217;s refreshing to let go a little and bring in another point of view. Your own vision can get blurry if you never do.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230;How many clothes do we actually need? Talking it through with you now, I keep realizing how absurd it is. We&#8217;re trapped in a cycle mostly because we&#8217;re too scared to break it.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Since the collections are all handmade, how long does the process usually take?<\/strong><br \/>\nI only do one collection a year, always shown in February. I start thinking about it as early as June or July, writing down ideas, considering materials, though the actual making comes later. It genuinely doesn&#8217;t make sense to me to produce two collections a year. I need the time, and there&#8217;s no pressure from hundreds of stores demanding the next drop. I think even for bigger brands, that pace stops making sense at some point. How many clothes do we actually need? Talking it through with you now, I keep realizing how absurd it is. We&#8217;re trapped in a cycle mostly because we&#8217;re too scared to break it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your collections often feel like they&#8217;re built around characters in motion. Who are the people you imagine wearing your pieces?<\/strong><br \/>\nI&#8217;ll disappoint you here, I don&#8217;t design with a specific person in mind. There\u2019s a recurring visual in my work, a certain bourgeois quality, decadent at the same time. I picture that kind of character clearly, it could be an older woman or someone much younger, a wide age range, but always a particular attitude. Elegant and decadent at once. That dualism is the persona I keep coming back to, more than any single muse. That said, when celebrities request custom pieces, it&#8217;s always inspiring. The muse shows up in real life sometimes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I want to touch on the dialogue between Paris and Berlin in your work. How do the two cities shape your creative process?<\/strong><br \/>\nI&#8217;ve been in Berlin for almost fifteen years now. I still love Paris. The two cities are completely different. Paris feels settled, in a way, the Maisons de Couture, the codes around dressing chic but nonchalant. I relate to that and find it genuinely interesting. Berlin was different when I first visited, a weekend trip back in 2007. It was rough. Rent was cheap, everyone called themselves an artist or said they were working on a project. It felt punk, underground, like anything was possible if you just tried. Those two influences are contradictory, but somehow they fit together, the bourgeois chic and the decadent. Berlin is a very particular, special city. I think everything ends up feeding into the work eventually. You&#8217;re not consciously logging inspiration; you&#8217;re more like a sponge, and your subconscious translates what you take in, not immediately, but eventually.<\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/FG3A2863.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1280\" height=\"1919\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-170669\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/FG3A2863.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/FG3A2863-427x640.jpg 427w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/FG3A2863-854x1280.jpg 854w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/FG3A2863-1025x1536.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" \/><br \/>\n<small> Charli  xcx | Image courtesy of Lou de B\u00e8toly <\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Why did you decide to move to Berlin?<\/strong><br \/>\nIt wasn&#8217;t a real plan. My business partner at the time wanted to be in Berlin, and I said I&#8217;d come for a bit and see. Then one thing led to another, I was working, building a brand, and I just stayed. Sometimes it&#8217;s better not to overthink these things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You used to work at <a href=\"\/\/models.com\/client\/jean-paul-gaultier\">Jean Paul Gaultier.<\/a> What did that experience reveal to you that you&#8217;ve carried into your own practice?<\/strong><br \/>\nThat was such a good time, such a beautiful memory. It was from 2007 to 2009. I was a fashion designer&#8217;s assistant at the studio, working on the knitwear collections and on embroidery and hand-knit development for couture. It was a privilege to witness that world firsthand. There aren&#8217;t many couture houses left, so being part of one felt significant. Everything was very analog then, maybe partly the era, but also just how that house worked; photocopies, draping, a lot of hands-on process. I think that&#8217;s very much who I still am, working in a concrete, tangible way. Seeing how everything was made there was definitely formative.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s next for the brand? Is there a specific goal you&#8217;re working toward?<\/strong><br \/>\nI try not to hold too many expectations, because that only sets you up to be disappointed. What excites me right now is continuing to work on fashion shows. I love bringing a full story to life that way. But I also enjoy working on other projects, like objects, collaborations. I&#8217;ve worked on a ceramic piece, knitted framed art pieces, and couches made from padded leather. Right now, I&#8217;m working on accessories that are almost like strange objects. That range is fulfilling artistically. I like the idea of not fitting into one single mold, doing a few different things at once. That feels like a good way to live. We only get one life. I want to keep doing what I do, and ideally keep enough custom requests and garment sales coming in to sustain it. That&#8217;s the wish. I don&#8217;t picture myself chasing more stores or more employees. Growing a bit would be good, as long as I can stay hands-on with the work.<\/p>\n<div class=\"centerimg\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/lou-final-image-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"864\" height=\"934\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-170650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/lou-final-image-.jpg 864w, https:\/\/i.mdel.net\/oftheminute\/images\/2026\/07\/lou-final-image--592x640.jpg 592w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px\" \/><br \/>\n<small> Od\u00e9ly Teboul | Image courtesy of Lou de B\u00e8toly <\/small>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hunter Pifer by Tim Walker for Lampoon Magazine | Image courtesy of Lou de B\u00e8toly Textiles and handcraft have been second nature to Od\u00e9ly Teboul since she was five years old. The French designer has always been drawn to things that are odd, a little bizarre, or not quite how they should be, and built&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":450,"featured_media":170650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13941,10527,10414,16,13943],"tags":[15384,15383],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170647"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170710,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170647\/revisions\/170710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/170650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/models.com\/oftheminute\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}