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In The Pursuit Of Aesthetic Pleasures

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Mavelle Paris

"Bold declarations of strength offer just as much as tender admissions of fragility. I want women to feel free to embody their truth."

 

Paris-made lingerie house, MAVELLE, creates striking yet delicate undergarment odes to self-acceptance and womanhood. Founded by the mononymic French designer, Mathilde, in 2016, these studio crafted intimates, toeing the line between private revelation and sensual display, are materialisations of her own inward journey towards joyfully indulgent (self-)love.

In collaboration with Belgian writer and photographer, Elise Wouters, who recently participated in Mona’s SPACE REIMAGINED series of site-specific artist takeovers, Mathilde has developed an exclusive slip dress available now through the House of Shila e-shop.

We spoke with Mathilde about poetry, love, intimacy both private and as a show of strength and all the joys of unapologetically embracing femininity. 

 

Interview  EFTIHIA STEFANIDI & Artist Portraits ELISE WOUTERS

HOS: How did your collaboration with House of Shila and Elise Wouters come about? What drew you to the project at first?

Mathilde (M): I’d already entrusted Elise with some of my pieces for her self-portraits. I love her poetry and sensuality. I was also touched by the sensitive and sensorial approach to dialoguing space, body and textiles. Collaborating was an obvious choice. Especially on a project where lingerie becomes a poetic language in its own right.

HOS: What ideas shaped the design of the slip dress? 

M: Always poetry, always sensuality. A piece which transcends intimacy. Something you could slip on for an evening, playing with transparency, lightness, fluidity and the sensuality of a lace neckline. I imagined a woman sliding this dress onto her skin, putting on heels to meet friends, a lover, or simply surrendering to a moment for herself in a room at Mona Athens.

 

“I love [Elise Wouters’] poetry and sensuality…the sensitive and sensorial approach to dialoguing space, body and textiles.”

 

photography by ELISE WOUTERS

HOS: Do you have a fond memory of Athens or Greece?

M: Amorgos, rough and gentle. The wind dizzying me around the mills. The delicious taste of grilled octopus. The mischievous, laughing glances of Greeks. Blue water, and its voluptuousness.

HOS: The slip dress is part of SPACE REIMAGINED, a series of on-site artistic interventions at Mona. How does the idea of ‘site-specificity’ resonate with you in the context of fashion?

M: I see my creations as responses to a place, body or atmosphere. To create in resonance with a space is to root fashion in the living. It demands listening, observing and stepping outside the logic of standardisation.

 

“Always poetry, always sensuality. A piece [transcends] intimacy.”

 

photography by ELISE WOUTERS

HOS: This collaboration brings together three creative worlds: fashion, visual art and spatial storytelling. How do you imagine this piece living in a place like Mona—or on a body in motion?

M: I imagine it as a subtle yet magnetic presence. Suspended in space, it catches the light, embraces the air. On a body, it moves with gestures and silences, lace framing the neckline, airy silk floating in the breeze.

HOS: What, for you, is at the heart of MAVELLE? 

M: A longing for freedom and a deep love of love itself. I was tired of the constant injunction to be a ‘strong woman’. I chose a different path, inviting women to be honest with themselves and fully ‘real’ in all their human contradictions. 

I began creating lingerie in my bedroom in 2016 as invitations to self-acceptance, and spaces for expressing all the facets of feminine truth. MAVELLE is a direct extension of that personal path. I came to lingerie through love: love of freedom, love of truth, love of the journey toward accepting my own body. My materials are always chosen with that sensitivity in mind: silk, Calais lace, jacquards, etc.

From my first studio in the heart of the Normandy countryside, to my current one in Paris, my inner evolution and MAVELLE’s have always been intimately intertwined.

 

 

“The heart of MAVELLE is a longing for freedom and a deep love of love itself.”

 

photography by ELISE WOUTERS

HOS: Your creations evoke the intimacy and delicacy of lingerie, while also being designed as assertive evening wear. What does it mean to you to claim softness as something visible—and powerful?

M: Bold declarations of strength offer just as much as tender admissions of fragility. I want women to feel free to embody their truth.

Equally, I want them to choose a delicate piece for themselves alone, as an intimate gesture, to reconnect with the self and sensuality for themselves.

HOS: MAVELLE is deeply committed to slow fashion. What advice would you give young designers starting out today?

M: Choosing slow fashion is a true commitment and a way of life. Take your time and resist the rush of the outside world. Learn to do less, but better. Be sincere in your gestures, in your intentions. 

 

photography by ELISE WOUTERS

HOS: MAVELLE castings often include women of different ages—intentional, yet a rarity. How does age influence your creations?

M: Sensuality, beauty and presence have no age. Femininity is not a fixed image. It evolves, grows more complex, more refined with time. Asking older women to embody MAVELLE is also my way of confronting the fear of seeing my own body age.

HOS: What does fashion mean to you when it enters the realm of art? Where does function end—and where does something more poetic begin?

M: Fashion becomes art when it stirs emotion. When it no longer merely dresses the body, but reveals something deeper. When we tell stories through garments. Function fades where imagination takes over. Where a piece evokes a memory, tells a story or sparks a sensation. That’s where poetry begins, in the space between what we wear and what we feel.

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