Atelier Tuffery

Artisanally crafted jeans in France, short supply chain, sustainable materials.

Florac, Cévennes, 1892. Célestin Tuffery is 17 years old. He's a tailor. The construction of a railway through the Cévennes brings hundreds of workers who need sturdy clothing. Célestin has an idea: take Nîmes cloth - denim, which literally carries the nearby city's name - and make work trousers. It's 1892, Levi Strauss has been patenting rivets since 1873, but in France, it's Célestin who starts the movement.

The workshop thrives. His son Jean-Alphonse takes over after the war. The good years: hundreds of trousers a day, sixty employees, subcontracting for other brands. Then Asian and North African competition arrives in the 70s-80s. The hemorrhage is brutal. Of sixty people, only three Tuffery brothers and a few seamstresses remain. In 1985, the workshop closes. Only a shop and retail business survive.

Silence for twenty years. Then Julien Tuffery, Célestin's great-grandson, 4th generation, leaves his job and joins what's left of the family business. It's the mid-2010s, Made in France is desirable again. Julien bets everything on direct sales and e-commerce. Production explodes: from 500 to 7,000 jeans per year. Revenue goes from €700,000 in 2017 to €4.6 million in 2024. 90% of sales are online, in dozens of countries.

Atelier Tuffery holds the EPV label (Living Heritage Company). A new manufacturing center was built next to the historic workshop. Everything is produced in France, with French and European fabrics. The workshop experiments with alternative materials - local sheep wool, European hemp - to reduce cotton dependency. It's the oldest and last jeans manufacturer in France. 132 years of Cévennes denim.