The Art of Connecting with Creators and Communities Bold(her) , brought to you by BMO for Women
[English]
Isabelle Fish
I really passionately believe that artisans, craftspeople, the field of craft is an incredibly important cog of a community. To me, it's extremely important that we keep that field alive.
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Lisa Bragg
Her passion for art comes through, doesn't it? Isabelle Fish is the founder of Rue Pigalle. She creates and curates design-inspired events and takes women on trips around the world, allowing them to discover destinations through the lens of arts and craftspeople. I'm Lisa Bragg and this is Bold(h)er. Stories of and for women who stand out. Brought to you by BMO for Women. Isabelle and I discussed what it looks like to go beyond shopping when acquiring artisanal pieces. She's even inspired me to have a new perspective when purchasing seemingly simple household items like a garbage bin. Here is my conversation with Isabelle.
So Isabelle, when you turned 50, you told me you realized something, something that most of us who are successful don't really talk about, we just don't talk about that. Sometimes we're lonely, but you talked about it as if we're lonely in a different way, and it's somewhat of a longing for the next chapter. Tell me a little bit about that.
Isabelle Fish
Yes, I think that's right. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. It was by really engaging with my clients and my friends that I realized that as women, as we turn 50. I don't think it matters whether we were working outside the house with a career, or working at home, or being full- time mothers. There seemed to be that moment in our life where it's almost like a hinge and everybody seems to have great things to go towards. I mean, our children are launching and starting their careers. Our partners are often very, very busy. We are also very busy and we've had a very satisfying 25 years, but it's been 25 years where we spent most of our time looking after others, trying to keep it all together because there's so much that we look after that, we responsible for. All of a sudden we find ourselves with extra time because we have fewer people to look after often. We realize that we haven't looked after ourselves. We haven't nurtured our friendships. We haven't had time to create new friendships. We haven't had a chance to go deeper in our passions, in our interests, because there just so many hours in the day and between work, career, kids, the days are really full, there's very little time for ourselves. All of a sudden we find ourselves with this time on our hands and
we don't quite know what to do with it. We need to recharge, replenish our tank of interests, of personal joy. It takes a while to rebuild that, and I find that for this period of time, that is required to figure out how to do it, who to turn to.
We feel a little bit at sea and a little bit lonely. So there's a big travail of reconstructing, rebuilding, reaching out to either past friends or making new friends, which always takes a little bit of effort. Reaching out to people, and discovering new interests, maybe starting new hobbies, or even launching into a new career. Sometimes we are at the peak of our career, and we thinking about next phase, and that also takes time. So I realized at that moment in women's life was a difficult one. That's when I started organizing these salon dinners with women in my house, and we would have speakers, and authors and sometimes just 12 women having a conversation about one topic and we called it the Jeffersonian Dinners. So we would pick a topic, and that's all we talked about. There was no one-on-one conversation, the conversation is at the center of the table. We don't talk about our kids, our jobs, our husbands, our latest reno, the school, whatever. It's about enriching each other, debating, and having an evening to ourselves.
Lisa Bragg
That sounds fabulous. It sounds like you're adding another layer to all of us, a layer that we have, but we haven't allowed out in a while.
Isabelle Fish I think that's right. We haven't allowed it, I think because we have a tendency to put ourselves in second, third, fourth position because we just look after others. I think it's just where we function as women often.
Lisa Bragg
How did you segue from doing the salons then to your latest? Because you took the, I'm going to start a business route because you're an entrepreneur, but now you've taken another business, and now you're taking people on travel journeys when you can.
Isabelle Fish
That's right. Well, it was a natural extension. The salons were mostly taking place in Toronto where I live and the business I had was a jewelry and ladies accessories gallery. All the designers and makers I was featuring and representing were from mostly Europe. Inevitably the clients, when I closed the gallery, the clients wanted to go and meet these amazing people, discover where they lived, and again, go onto that adventure and time to themselves, enrich themselves. So the travel was just a natural extension of these dinners because I only take small groups, women only, maximum 10, which was the number of dinner guests I had. Together we go on a five-day adventure, one week adventure, which obviously is well organized and prepared. The word adventure doesn't mean that we just go like that. Again, we interact with makers, designers, architect, historians, gallery owners, curators, all around craft with. I started specializing in the jewelry, but then realized very quickly that the world of craft was just so wide, so interesting, so diverse that it was almost a shame to limit ourselves to jewelry.
Lisa Bragg So you take these people on these amazing, they sound like adventures or journeys, but we're taping this in the depths of COVID. So take us as if we were going on one of your journeys and give us a little bit of the color of behind the scenes, one of your in-person journeys. I think we just need a little bit of that extra thinking for when we can actually come together and take an adventure in person. So tell us a little bit about that.
Isabelle Fish Sure. I'll take the one we did in Paris last year, we actually did two cities. We had four days in Paris and then four days in Aix-en-Provence in the South of France. It was really interesting because we had 10 women, some were traveling solos, others were traveling with a friend, and we had two pairs of a mother-daughter, which was really wonderful because we had two generations. These young women, they are just amazing, they were really showing us off and they are so full of interest and knowledge. It was really wonderful to have these two young women with us. So we always stay in a hotel that is a small hotel, I don't do the big chain because first I have a relationship with people who look after us much better, but also I pick the hotel in an area that has a lot of craft and makers.
Every day it will be going to, for example, we went to the studio of Stefano Poletti, who is an Italian jeweler, who does a lot of work with Hermes and Vuitton, Christian Lacroix, and makers like that who has his own collection and he's actually is amazing. It's at the back of a courtyard in Paris. So imagine one of these little passageways that goes behind the building in the courtyard, and then he's Atelier is actually an old painters Atelier. So it has the glass roof to give the light and his bench is there. In the part that is before that, a workshop area, he has a salon where we can sit and have tea with him, listen to his story, and then he'll show us his collection. There's always a little bit of shopping that's involved because it's very difficult to resist, and clients place orders for commission, but also exchange stories. Just talking to him, what his inspiration was, how he came from the Northern part of Italy to Paris, and how he worked. He was an assistant to Azzedine Alaia, for example. So you discover all these incredible people who are completely hidden because the big brands don't allow them to have a say, but who really create all the beauty that we all enjoy.
When we were in Somerset in October, we went to take a workshop in Bruton, in Somerset with a letter press workshop, with Mr. Smith. His studio is under the arches of the train tracks and he has all these hand printing machines, and you roll the ink, and you place the letters, which is actually a very complicated task. There's a lot of mathematics involved in creating a printed piece of paper, it's very bizarre. You learn something from them, you've acquired a new skill. You've learned the history of a letter press. You've learned where the ink comes from, where the paper comes from, the weight of the Beaver. So it's a world where, you know nothing, you are completely a blank page and you absorb all this information. You create this relationship with this incredible artisan and you come out of there quite transformed actually. Lisa Bragg Oh, I love that. I love the behind the scenes stories because we're so used to seeing everything so polished and perfect in the world, or we only see that one piece of someone's life. But when you get to see behind the stage, behind the curtain, there's a world, and sometimes an organized chaos, or quiet methodical planning with the mathematics, with the printing and the ink. But the fact that it also allows the person to transform the viewer, the person who's being taken on a journey to transform and to go deeper, that's really meaningful work.
Isabelle Fish It is, and for me, it's really important because the reason why I do all this is because I really passionately believe that artisans, craftspeople, the field of craft is an incredibly important cog of a community. Everything that I do is to make sure that that field of craftsmanship carries on for the future generation. Because I would be very sad if my children, my grandchildren, and the next generation did not have access to that made by hand, that skill, that slowness, that knowledge of the material of the tools. It really gives a different dimension to the way we live our lives. To me, it's extremely important that we keep that field alive. So transforming my clients and my friends from adventurers, travelers, shoppers into patrons of the crafts is really, really important.
Lisa Bragg Because that's the thing we think, "Oh, we're going to go on a shopping trip," but this is so much deeper to be able to see beyond and relate to the struggle of the maker, somebody who is the artisan, the craft person. To go beyond that fast fashion or expensive fashion to see really where people make these goods, the hand crafting of it. That's such an amazing journey.
Isabelle Fish It is. I'm always extremely clear with travelers who inquire about the trips. I actually have a call with every person who asks to come on a trip before they sign on, to make sure that they understand that these are not shopping trips. If you want to go on a shopping trip, there are lots of people who do that much better than I would. But if you are interested in yeah, understanding what's happening to make your coat or to build that table, or the ripple effect of buying that coat or buying that table, your supporting an artisan, his family, his suppliers, his toolmaker, his material supplier, his community, and it's extremely important to understand that. It gives you a different approach and a different respect for the object that you have in your house.
I always give the example of the garbage can. If you need a garbage can, you can go to Ikea, or Costco, or anywhere and buy a $10, $12 plastic garbage can that will sit under your sink, and will be totally functional, will last probably 30 years, and even longer in the waste field. But every time you see it, it will do absolutely nothing for you. On the other hand, you could buy a $300 garbage can, which seems extravagant, but we last just as long as the other one, and every time you look at this garbage can, you will think about the maker who made it. You will be delighted because it's a beautiful object. You will have an emotion because if it's in wood or if it's in porcelain it has a tactile connection to you, and you'll bring a little bit of beauty in your life, under your sink when nobody, but you will see it.
That's an extraordinary enriching experience in life. If you can live your life that way, because you know and you understand the value of such objects, not just the monetary value, but the emotional value, the socio-economic value of this object that you purchase, I think you are much a better citizen.
Lisa Bragg
Yeah, because it's not just a thing then doing whatever pedestrian thing it's supposed to do, it enriches your life because now it's a story.
Isabelle Fish
Yeah. I take my time. I pick objects that really are meaningful even for functional objects. I also was very fortunate that my parents taught me to approach my life that way. And a lot of the things that I have in my house come from them, from their parents, from my great-grandparents and you're right, they are stories. I'm surrounded by all these stories, and it's very comforting, particularly when you live in a place other than where you grew up and when you've moved, we've moved a lot. Having our things with us, with these stories that are attached to these objects has been enormous comfort every time we have moved and arrived in a place where we didn't know anybody.
Lisa Bragg
Yeah. Because life winds and changes, and in ways that we can't even imagine. You started your career, you're from France, is that right?
Isabelle Fish
That's correct.
Lisa Bragg
Yeah. So you started your career as a lawyer and now you're in Canada making these amazing experiences for people, and connecting people to art in such a deep way. But there is a red thread, a through-line to everything that you do. I'm going to say that it must be storytelling. Is it storytelling that's through everything you've done? Or what is it that connects everyone? Because there's always something when you look back over your life, that's like, "That connects me through everything."
Isabelle Fish
Yes. I think storytelling is certainly the red thread. I mean, I grew up in a family where the oral tradition was very strong, and we knew stories about every member of the family for three generations back because they were shared with us by our parents and grandparents. I think it's that tradition that I'm trying to carry on, sharing the stories of people, and learning the stories of people. Everywhere we've lived and moved, I've always tried to, to meet new people, and the house is always full of people. At the beginning my husband was a little bit surprised. I would just bring home people for dinner, or he would see people show up. We would have drinks party, and someone would ring the bell, he didn't know who it was.
He would come to me and say, "There's someone at the door. They say, they're coming for the drinks party. I said, "Oh, yes. I've just met them at, whatever the kids school, or I was just walking and I met that person, and they seem an interesting people, so I just invited them to join us." It took him a little while to get used to that. But now he sees the value of that, of having all these people who come in, and you meet, and you enrich yourself through their stories, and you introduce them to someone else, and then you create a network of people who help each other, who share the same interests and love. You see all sorts of projects and new things.
Lisa Bragg
Isabelle, you're a person of iteration, and transformation, and shifting yourself through all the different things you've done in your life. We're in a time of great shifts now, some people obviously are afraid of shifting and the transformation of the time, but how do you take it in? How do you take all the strides in of the great moves you've had?
Isabelle Fish I think that, yes, we have to acknowledge that changing is difficult and adapting is difficult, whether you are someone who embraces change or not, it is difficult. I'm very, very fortunate that I'm an optimistic. So I always think that things are going to work out. Sometime, I probably am a little bit too optimistic than I should.
Lisa Bragg
That's why you're an entrepreneur.
Isabelle Fish
Yeah, I think so. Sometimes I probably should be a little bit more realistic, but I'm extremely optimist. I believe that you never get a hardship or a trial that you can't handle. So that's a great strength. I must also say that I have, at my side, a husband who has been an extraordinary supporter and who has given me the confidence to change, and to be an entrepreneur. That is something that I, it's invaluable. If you don't have a supportive environment, it's very difficult to change. But I think that we have to accept things for what they are and make the best of a situation. See it as opportunities. There's always a silver lining underneath. Sometimes it takes a little while to come up and to be obvious, but it's always there. Certainly I've been extremely fortunate that in my life, it has always been like that. That's how I've been able to, every time we moved, I was able to practice law, one way or another, not always what I had envisaged, but it was nonetheless the great opportunity. Then I had the opportunity to change career and to enter a world of beauty and a new world of art and craft, which is a long way from law, except for the fact that you have to be extremely creative and innovative to be a good lawyer, because you need to think outside the box, you need to look at things in a different way. So I think that that approach that creativity has helped me. I am actually always very surprised to see how many ex lawyers there are in the world of fashion, of art and of craft. It's quite remarkable. I know many, many women who were lawyers and who now, we collaborate together on different projects and they have become entrepreneurs in the world of art and craft.
Lisa Bragg
Now you've had to, like many of us though, pivot again with COVID going on. You've made a pivot that you might keep this pivot. Is that right?
Isabelle Fish
Yes. I think that I will, because I have to say that it has been surprising opportunity when the lockdown happened, my business disappeared in six seconds. All the trips were canceled, all the events were canceled, the whole business disappeared. So I started immediately in mid-March weekly live intervie ws on Zoom, interviewing artists, makers, gallery owners around the world as if we were in their studios and my clients just log on and can interact with these amazing creators as if we were traveling and being in their studios. That has proven to be not only a great business opportunity, but every week I receive emails and messages from people who have joined the conversation saying, what a wonderful escape it is. These with weekly conversations are uplifting for the spirit. It is to have all these beauty brought to them once a week. It really has, going back to that theme of loneliness we were having at the beginning, I think that, I mean, it's nothing new, everybody has been saying it for the past nine months, but we are so isolated even when we live with someone.
We have people in our house, we are in a way very isolated. These weekly conversations have created the link between the audience and the makers, the outside world. It has enabled people to escape their daily routine or their confinement, and it has given the ideas and the makers an audience to share their stories. Because these people need to, they love to share their stories and to show you what they make, and how good they are because that's their passion. So this online community has really grown and is wonderful. From there we organized a workshops, embroidery workshops, collage workshops, cooking workshops. Live on Zoom again, 10 women as if we were traveling, we all on Zoom and all together with an artist, we cook, we embroider, we glue, we cut we talk. It has created again, an incredible sense of community, and a friendship among the women, and of new discovery, of a new craft of new skills.
Finally, what I did is two and a half months ago, I launched the club by Rue Pigalle, which is to gather and link all these women in a slightly more organized way to become patrons of crafts and craftsmanship, and to have a common purpose under the banner of the club. To enrich themselves and discover a new makers and support them. We have now close to 40 members in four different countries, which is wonderful, which would not have been possible with the digital explosion that we've been living through. Thank goodness for that, in the past nine months. So I have been very fortunate to be able to make a great positive transformation, and pivot out of a very, very serious situation. Lisa Bragg
You mentioned before, something about, it's about making sure that the artisans have a voice, and the makers have a voice, and it's about people coming back with more stories. It's not always about shopping, shopping, shopping, it's about helping art thrive and philanthropy thrive through sharing of stories. So you don't necessarily have to have the means to buy all of the goods that you see. It's about sharing the stories of the craft person. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Isabelle Fish
Yes. I think you're absolutely right. I think that the monetary transaction that happens sometimes between a traveler and the craftsmen, the act of shopping is actually in that case, not shopping. First, it has to happen to support the makers, sharing their stories is amazing because maybe you're going to tell your friend about this incredible maker and she's going to connect with him or her, and she will buy something. But supporting them financially is important, but it's an act of patronage, it's an act of, I don't want you to say philanthropy because you're getting something quite beautiful for the amount that you pay. Not just the object, but the memories, the emotion that you're going to relive every time you look at this object or you use it.
But it's not the shopping because that emotion is involved. Because you connecting with the person, you know that the monetary transaction is going to have a direct effect on someone's life, which you don't have when you buy something from a shop or from a big brand. So I think it's this becoming a patron of these makers and artisans is very important.
Lisa Bragg
Is there a story that you could tell us of how somebody transformed from maybe being a hesitant participant and now really being quite the arts patron. Because I wonder where people don't necessarily see the connection right away of being an arts patron when you purchase things. Do people get that?
Isabelle Fish
No, I think it's a good point. Not everybody gets that. I can think of a lady who traveled with me a couple of years ago. It was the first time she was traveling by herself, she had just gone through a very difficult period in her life and had decided that she was going to really get out of her comfort zone, book a trip to a city she had never been, with someone she didn't know, by herself. In the world of craft, that really was not her world at all. She had been in STEM her whole career and craft and art, she never had time for that. I remember when we were starting the trip for the first couple of days, she was so uncomfortable because she didn't know if she could allow herself to purchase what she liked, if she would be judged by the rest of the group, if this was good value.
I mean, she had all these questions, which are completely legitimate. I was just observing her, and gave her a couple of days to find her feet. Eventually we visited this textile Atelier, and she put on that scarf.
Sometimes people put things on and you know it's for them. It's just an incredible moment where you put the scarf on, and the color is perfect and you see how the lady will just completely relax, and feel totally at ease, and comfortable with the object. It's a really interesting moment. When you're in retail, you can observe the body language of the client. I always gave the clients a little bit of space and observe how they were handling the object, wearing it, whether it was a piece of jewelry or a handbag or a scarf or something like that.
Anyway, in this case, this lady put the scarf on and it was just perfect. I saw at that moment, the click happen in her eyes and she suddenly understood what it was all about. Then she wasn't stoppable, which was wonderful for the rest of the trip. She still has the scarf, and she writes to me on a regular basis, she joined some of the conversations, and she always refers to that scarf. She calls it her beauty moment. Really, it was quite incredible. So I'm glad you asked that question because it is, there's a transformation moment for a lot of people who don't necessarily know anything about the world of craft and art.
Lisa Bragg
Why is it important that we make a connection to craft and art? Why do you think people need that connection, especially women? Why do you think we need to go there?
Isabelle Fish Why is it important that we make a connection to craft and art? Why do you think people need that connection, especially women? Why do you think we need to go there? It's human. It's the human contact. You will not think twice about discarding the plastic garbage can, because it means nothing to you other than the fact that it was $12 and it's cheap. But imagine that the garbage can is dented and you're going to look at it, and even though it's not perfect, you're not going to dispose of it very easily because of that emotion. So I think that it feeds our soul. It feeds our emotional being, and if there was any time when we needed to have proof that we need connections now is the time. We all have realized how important it is to have real connections, and how unsatisfactory this lack of connection, or even these fake digital connections, which is the best we can get at the moment.
But it's just not as good as a real human connection. The craft gives you that because when you, when you handle the object that has been made by hand you have almost hand to hand contact through that object. The human touch is an extremely powerful, emotional element and extremely powerful enriching of the soul moment. Look at the moment, all we want to do is hug each other. It's hug our friends, that touch, so that object that you have is the closest you will get to having hand to hand contact with a maker and that's true connection, and we need that in our life.
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Lisa Bragg
Okay. Isabelle, on Bold(h)er, we always ask these three questions, what's the boldest thing you've ever done? Isabelle Fish
The boldest has been to start my business. I think it takes, I don't want to be self-congratulatory, but it takes courage to launch a business. I have to say that I never appreciated how much courage and hard work it takes and small entrepreneurs are my new heroes actually.
Lisa Bragg
That's so great. When do you wish you were bolder?
Isabelle Fish
I think I wish I was bolder at the beginning of my career as a lawyer in advocating for women. I mean that was 30 years ago and it was the 90s and the mentality then was just, if I can get a job and I'm goin g to work as hard as I can, and I will just take whatever comes that way, and I'll handle it, and I'll make it work. I work, and work, and work, and we just accepted what was handed to us. I think that I should have been bolder because I was in a position, I want to say a position of privilege just because I was educated, and I had traveled and lived in several countries already. I had seen different ways and how women really struggled, had difficulty to us to have a career, any kind of career, and a family, and everything. I wish I had been bolder in asserting that and in advocating for women in the office where I was. So I wish I had been bolder then.
Lisa Bragg
What would you say to your 12 year old self?
Isabelle Fish
I think that I would have said that being different is actually a strength and don't let others intimidate you. Just get to know yourself, trust yourself, accept your differences as part of who you are, just be centered on yourself and be who you are. Someone told me once other, people intimidate us only because we let them intimidate us, or we are intimidated by other people only because we allow them to intimidate us. That for me, it came when I was much older than 12, but was a big eye-opener and I thought, yeah. I am who I am and if it doesn't work for others, that's okay. We'll just find a space where, who I am is embraced and accepted and supported. So I think that's what I would tell my 12 year old self.
Lisa Bragg
I think that's good advice for any age. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks for listening to Bold(h)er, brought to you by BMO for women. I'm Lisa Bragg. Special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Isabel Fish, and to our producer, Amanda Cupido. For the latest episodes, be sure to subscribe to Bold(h)er on your favorite podcast player. If you're already subscribed and enjoying the series, we'd love it if you could share it with a friend or leave us a review. Bye for now.
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