Last year, I released my second collection, Culte Solaire, two years after Abysses. As I write these lines, I realize the brand will be celebrating its third anniversary in May. As with every anniversary, there's this inevitable introspection that invites us to reflect on what has changed within us. Naturally, I thought about talking about Solar Cult to illustrate all the evolutions that have taken place between the brand’s launch in early 2022 and the release of its second collection two years later.

When I imagined Abysses, the underwater world seemed like a fantastic creative pretext to design pieces that would reflect who I am. The desire to tell stories was already there, but still budding, not quite conscious. When I decided to release a second collection, I naturally wanted to tell a story before creating a piece — to unfold a whole narrative where the jewel would be almost a mere accessory, and to invite people into a fully built universe.

At the roots of this universe lies a whole system of ancient rituals, bathed in the flickering light of bonfires, candlelit processions, and the setting sun of summer. It’s a collection that also evokes a range of underwood scents and sun-warmed fragrant herbs. It brings me back to the sincere love I have for folk beliefs and rural folklore.

The marvellous as an extension of the ordinary: the worship of the sun and the fear of darkness.

What I love about rural folklore and the beliefs that come with it is that they are rooted, originally, in a very ordinary and difficult daily life, shaped by agriculture and the slow rhythm of the seasons. The relationship to light and the sun is very specific, as these two elements determine very factual things like crop abundance and the survival of a community. But one also perceives more abstract aspects, such as the relationship with time, the need for safety, and the attraction to the marvellous.

In the old Breton calendar, inherited from Celtic memory, the year was divided into two crucial periods: the calends of May and the calends of winter, which began in November. The calends of May were marked by the return of the sun and the worship of fire deities, especially those related to field fertility. From this worship came rituals and festivals, some of which still survive today.

The Feast of Saint John: a ritualised bond with nature

Saint John’s Day is a celebration found all over the world and coincides, give or take a few days, with the summer solstice. Of pagan origin, the feast served as a symbolic protection against darkness, the harshness of winter, and the evil spirits that came with it. Later dedicated to Saint John during the rise of Christianity, it remains a celebration today, marking the longest day of the year before the days slowly begin to shorten and herald the coming of winter.

To me, Saint John’s Day feels like a highly sensory celebration. That’s what I wanted to convey by creating the Herbes de la Saint-Jean earrings. All across Europe, rituals consist in gathering herbs and flowers that only bloom in June, to burn them on Saint John’s Eve or hang them in homes. In Latvia, researcher Céline Bayou explains that, to ward off evil spirits and witches during the summer solstice, homes and fields were decorated with rowan branches. She recounts that even today, the eve of the summer solstice, called Herb Day, is dedicated to gathering birch, oak, rowan branches, and wildflowers, which are used to decorate homes, animals, and the head of the household.

In France, herbes de la Saint-Jean bloom around June 24, and some are linked to ancient beliefs. For example, orpin remarquable (orpine) was hung from bedroom ceilings to bring good luck, and aneth fenouil (dill fennel) branches were passed through the Saint John’s fire to ward off sorcerers. In Gascony, dill sprigs were even used to block keyholes to prevent evil spirits from entering homes!

It’s a festival deeply connected to nature and the cyclical passage of seasons. In Locronan, Finistère, a large beech tree is planted in the church square at the end of April to celebrate the arrival of summer. This is the tree that village youth will cut down before burning its branches in the Saint John’s fire. This choice of beech may be linked to ancient Celtic traditions, which saw the tree as a symbol of nature's reawakening, since it is the first to leaf when the fair season arrives.

In Fontenoy-le-Château, Lorraine, Saint John’s Day is a chance for the whole village to erect gigantic wooden replicas of birthday cakes, bridges, or spaceships, which are burned on the night of June 24. Stripped of its religious connotations, Saint John’s has become a time to gather and socialize around an old custom whose origins may be forgotten.

As for me, I notice that many creators today remember this heritage and return to the roots of these beliefs and rituals. I believe this reflects a desire to reconnect with one’s origins and to re-examine our relationship with tradition.

Returning to one’s roots and exploring Breton culture differently

Although Fontennoy is a direct homage to Fontenoy-le-Château, a small village in eastern France, my roots are resolutely Breton. I grew up in Finistère and have lived in Ille-et-Vilaine for about ten years. Until recently, I questioned little about my relationship with my birth culture. I believe that, unintentionally, I associated my roots with a set of caricatured images that didn’t always appeal to me.

And yet, Breton culture is built on a rich and still vibrant foundation, rooted in ancient pagan traditions from the Celtic world and in the late arrival of Christianity. This vast ensemble forms a sprawling universe that gives pride of place to the marvellous and to a ritualised relationship with nature.

While creating Culte Solaire, I revisited the tales that shape the marvellous Breton universe. It was a chance for me to question how we think and view the world around us.

One of these tales tells of Mona Kerbili, an ordinary young girl drawn to the underwater world and the sunken civilisation it holds — that of the Morgan. Enchanted by one of them, she abandons everything that made up her everyday life to live beneath the sea. Years go by, and the memory of her life on land begins to torment her.

Moved by her sorrow, her husband grants her permission to return to the surface, on the condition that she promises to come back. But Mona Kerbili cannot live between two worlds, and once on land, the memory of her life underwater fades away completely. Yet it is not lost, and on a stormy night, Mona Kerbili is called back to the sea by her husband, disappearing forever into the waves.

Even if the deeper meaning of this tale is lost, I see it as a way of speaking about the place we occupy in the world and the complex relationship we have with our roots. One might think these themes affect us more as we grow older, but I believe they are universal and timeless. They’re present from childhood and continue to resonate differently throughout our lives.

To me, Mona Kerbili reminds us that finding our place in the world sometimes comes from difficult choices, and often involves compromise. Yet it is this uncomfortable process, which never truly resolves, that gives us the chance to explore new horizons and to grow.

Today, I believe we are fortunate to live in a world where we can choose to remember and honour stories, rituals, and customs that speak, quite simply, to our shared humanity. It’s a way to reinvest in traditions that, stripped of their normative aspects, bring us back into the mindset — not so different from ours — of our ancestors and how they viewed the world.

Ethnologist Yvonne Verdier speaks of the instinct of custom: “Custom is sung, danced, drunk, dreamed, celebrated, played (...); it is neither thought nor told, it is done, it acts, it is lived, and for those who live it, it is indivisible and resists reflection.”

It’s a comforting thought to believe that all these forgotten customs and imperceptible currents of magic quietly sustain our modern societies. I believe it’s an opportunity for us to perceive fragments of continuity in a world that is constantly changing.