Christine Phung reinvents herself through leather goods

A Renaissance

For Christine Phung, renaissance comes through leather goods. With dual degrees from Duperré and the Institut Français de la Mode, the designer first focused her talent on ready-to-wear. Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris in 2011, the year her brand launched, and winner of the Andam prize in 2013, she showcased her collections for several years during Paris Fashion Weeks. Becoming artistic director of Leonard Paris from 2016 to 2020, she then put her brand on hold, before reinventing it in 2022. "With Covid-19, we witnessed a paradigm shift in fashion and luxury. I decided to relaunch capsule collections for people who love design with a unique, elegant, effortless wardrobe, using sustainable materials," she explains.
Noting that "with a beautiful shirt and a beautiful bag, you can go anywhere," Christine Phung now centers her focus on these two essential basics. She offers all variations of the shirt, from jackets to shirt dresses, and leather accessories, with the tote bag playing a central role.
Last October, she was present for the second time at the Première Classe show, with what she calls her third "edition" of leather goods, produced in a limited series. A designation that she finds more suitable for a more "sustainable" approach. The idea: for editions to accumulate and not render previous ones obsolete. "In theory, there is always stock and I move at the pace I want and which corresponds to the possibilities of my manufacturers. Of course, I make sure to be present at the Première Classe editions," she indicates.

A Tote Bag, Pillar of the Leather Offering

The pillar of her leather collection is a tote bag created in collaboration with Morgan Diguerher, a long-time freelance designer friend met at Vanessa Bruno, where they both worked. "Morgan analyzed my brand's DNA and understood, in addition to my quest for functionality, that I liked architectural and minimalist items." The result: a tote bag with clean, geometric shapes. Its handles, finished with diamond-shaped attachments, give the model, according to the designer, "all its strength. This slightly deformed diamond, creating a certain aerodynamic quality, echoes all my work on cuts and other geometric patchworks," she emphasizes.
The designer, who in the past imagined "shows with thousands of references, impossible to produce today," has chosen to focus on this iconic bag. "Customers need useful and versatile accessories. My tote bag meets these needs by being hybrid, a chameleon. Born in M, designed for laptops (47 cm), it lengthened to L (58 cm), stretched to XL for weekends (70 cm), and finally miniaturized to XS, ideal for evenings."
Christine Phung's third edition also included three accessories, designed for her "nomadic" target. Namely, a passport holder, a card holder, and a berlingot, "a small pouch for carrying lipstick and keys when going to the market." For the next edition, announced in January, Christine is developing a laptop-sized pouch (15 inches).

Upcycled Materials

Everything is made from upcycled materials. "I like the idea of upcycling, giving a second life to left-overs (unsold items, editor's note) to make something beautiful. This creates a poetic link with the cycle of infinity, a concept I integrated into my logo, where the C and P intertwine like the symbol of infinity," she explains.
For her first edition, Christine Phung sourced high-end cowhide leathers in a "beautiful burgundy" from the Alsatian tannery Haas from the platform Adapta Paris, dedicated to unsold resources. Fate then offered her what she describes as a "true gift." She met Sophie Delafontaine, Artistic Director of Longchamp and patron of the Andam Prize, who explained that her leather goods house could open its stock to her as a laureate. "Since 2023, my tote bags have been made with superb Longchamp cowhide and lambskin leathers, and my small leather goods are cut from the scraps of Longchamp leathers!" she exclaims with joy.
Wishing to enable her clients to increase their "aura," she chooses luminous colors such as an electric blue, named Anima (an allusion to our feminine side), a soft orange, embossed leathers in white or black crocodile style, blueberry printed leather, or natural leathers. A palette that serves as her base for inventing, in harmony, the prints for her shirts. On the manufacturing side, Christine Phung initially relied, as a member of CTC (Centre Technique du Cuir), on the Faire De Lance platform to find French manufacturers, a "real support and assistance" for her beginnings. For cost reasons, she has since turned to a Portuguese workshop, based near Porto.

Heading for international markets

For her small leather goods, with high manufacturing costs, the designer says she is in "permanent test mode to find the right model at the right price". In this quest, she has been supported since last September by the ADC "La Relève" program for a period of six months, renewable. "The objective is to clarify the offer. I am in the midst of reflecting on price positioning to improve the brand's international development," she acknowledges.
Thanks to the Première Classe springboard, the Christine Phung brand is already sold in about ten points of sale in France and Europe (Spain, Luxembourg, Norway). A very encouraging sign: her bags achieve good resale rates and several boutiques have already reordered. From November to January 10th, the brand was visible in a pop-up store alongside the jewelry designer Tzuri Gueta. But the majority of her sales are still made via her website to her community of customers (35,000 followers on Instagram, 1,400 subscribers to her newsletter). By perfecting her business model, the designer would now like to give herself the means to develop exports, particularly in Asia (Korea, Japan, etc.). In the meantime, Christine Phung's leather goods, which already account for half of her turnover, have already proven their worth…