Collège de Paris - 05.07.18

A creative project of Ms Luxury and Fashion Management becomes reality

A second year student in Luxury and Fashion Management, Justine Valençon is now co-founder of Bonanza Paris. With her partner Chloé, she traces with precision the history of this project, initially created at the Ecole Conte, and tells us about its future prospects.

What is the genesis of your project?

This project started as a result of the “creative project” that we have to realize in the 2nd year of Ms Management of Luxury and Fashion in order to train us in the creation of a brand and a company. A year ago, Bonanza Paris was still Atelier Bonanza. The concept was very different from the one that emerged a few months ago. Atelier Bonanza was a luxury jewellery brand whose creations were modern and futuristic and the concept was as follows: working with recycled gold. The creation of a jewellery brand was already rather instinctive at that time, this market having been on the rise for several years. The challenge was to create a brand that could diversify from others.

What prompted you to launch your project?

It is true that since my adolescence, I have always wanted to have my own business one day. However, Bonanza Paris arrived in a rather unexpected way; nothing had been anticipated.

Indeed, to conclude this “creative project”, the realization of a lookbook was essential, and to do this, I asked my friend – and now partner – Chloé Bechini, to pose with the jewels that we had realized for our project. Moreover, for the anecdote, the jewels had been created containing cardboard

How did your studies in luxury and fashion management motivate you to pursue this project?

Besides my desire to start my own business one day, the creative learning we received during our first year from Ms has “awakened” my creativity. Indeed, if as a child, I made Christmas presents for my family with everything I had on hand, I hadn’t had this desire for creativity and inventiveness for a while.

So it was the combination of manual and creative learning – especially styling – with managerial learning that taught me a lot during my studies at the Collège de Paris.

In addition, my sandwich course, which I completed in my 2nd year at Fête Impériale Paris where I held the position of sales and communication assistant, trained me in all aspects of business creation. Internships and work placements are the best school for me.

You have rethought your project to make it viable, what were the main difficulties you encountered ?

The first difficulty encountered was the actual creation of the company. Chloé and I discovered day after day the joys of setting up an administrative and legal company. However, we are fortunate to be surrounded by relatives who were able to help us each in their own way, according to their profession and their knowledge on the subject. We were well advised. Despite the rush to release our first collection for this summer, we wanted to do things by the book.

As we work with a workshop, deadlines are also a daily challenge. A delay in production can have significant consequences… We therefore make every effort to have an easy contact and a clear and precise understanding with our workshop.

Your very first collection is called “seaside”, what were your inspirations?

In creating Bonanza Paris, Chloé and I were inspired by the primitive symbols and messages of jewellery to free ourselves from them. Determined to underline the bodies and to sublimate the skin, adepts of vintage and turned towards the future, we wanted to inscribe ourselves in the present, honouring the past, shaping our idea of modernity.

The “Seaside” collection is therefore inspired by one of our past eras: Ancient Egypt first of all, for its enhancement of the raw material, the assembly of shells and the use of jewellery by Egyptian women. At that time, it was jewellery that dressed women’s white gowns… Here again, we find one of our main motivations: to magnify feminine beauty with a creative and quality accessory.

To this we have added the inspiration of our year of birth – the 90’s and its vintage style – with our daily source of inspiration, the French Riviera.

What are your short-term goals?

Our future goal is to find a news agency that could help us in the international development of the brand. For a young brand, it is quite complicated to make

a place on the market and stand out from the crowd. This is the reason why the press and the salesman are essential elements to reach a certain notoriety and hope the perenniality of the brand.

We decided to create a small collection with exclusive pieces and limited stocks for this first “Seaside” collection. However, in the near future, we would like to expand the collections a little, while keeping a certain exclusivity on the various products.

We are also developing a concept around our brand ambassadors, who are women who surround and inspire us and about whom we will communicate very soon. Bonanza Paris wants to put forward everyday women, ambitious, charismatic and elegant each in their own way to animate this libertarian wind created by women, for women. And not just any of them.

Moreover, we are already designing the next collection that we can’t wait to unveil.

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