The Cult French Brand Bella Loves Started Life As A Vintage Treasure Trove On Ebay

Bella Hadid’s lockdown uniform appears to have been approached with the same vigour as her street-style looks during show season. While many are nesting in a rotating selection of muted loungewear, Hadid has been orchestrating home photo shoots in menswear; bringing back old-school sportswear brands; and single-handedly hailing the return of the boob tube. Among the ’90s athleisure and crop tops, Hadid has afforded herself a cosy moment or two. As well as Ugg’s snow boots (a puffer jacket in shoe form, according to the Australian brand), the super packed autumnal-coloured Sézane knitwear for her stay at her mother Yolanda’s Pennsylvania farm.

Hadid has been wearing her mottled yellow Sézane Johnny pullover with customised Juliet Johnstone jeans for an outdoorsy look that veered towards Woodstock territory, rather than typical French-girl style. Brand founder Morgane Sézalory sent Hadid the alpaca-merino sweater during London Fashion Week. But the model, who is often in the fashion capitals where Sézane has L’Appartements, has likely frequented its impossibly chic shoppable homes. (Let’s not forget this is the 23 year old who has framed pictures of Audrey Hepburn on her bedroom walls).

Sézalory – who started out in fashion aged 18 selling flea market finds on eBay and launched cult customised vintage edit, Les Composantes, in 2009 – is in a similarly remote position to Hadid. She is holed up at her family’s house two hours outside of Paris. But instead of frolicking with farmyard animals like the Hadids, the designer is entertaining two small children while simultaneously trying to create Sézane’s spring/summer 2021 collection. The successful brand – which grew out of her vintage platform – is worlds away from her first entrepreneurial efforts selling retro pieces via scheduled online “rendezvous”. “We try to work on a day to day basis because things are changing so quickly,” Sézalory tells British Vogue of the team’s flexible mindset (Sézane was Paris’s first direct-to-consumer model when it launched in 2013). “Coronavirus has not changed much because we are always reinventing ourselves. I am still very much focused on sustainability and our philanthropic programme, Demain.”

The brand had to halt its Sézane Tour – its shop openings in Madrid and Austin – due to Covid-19, but Sézalory feels buoyed by the label’s growing Instagram community during this uncertain time. “It makes me happy and proud to see people wearing Sézane in their homes and supporting us – it’s a real gift,” she says with regards to the #sezaneathome social movement. Consumers the world over – whose obsession with Parisian style runs deep – are still shopping her charming, accessibly-priced takes on French staples.

To keep Sézane’s 1.6 million Instagram followers engaged during the pandemic, when the world’s screen time is drastically up, the brand has been sharing simple modes of escapism, including dance classes, recipe tutorials and book clubs. “Share your moves with us,” urges one post in that impossibly insouciant manner that only a French brand can muster. On the 21st of every month, Sézane also orchestrates a Solidarity Call, or L’Entraide – which means mutual aid – whereby it shines a spotlight on a social group in need and sends donations, sweet words and ideas to those affected.

Sézalory’s home kindergarten means that her own extracurricular activities involve more craft and game playing than dancing, but, she says, “I have also taken this time to look at things differently. I have a new interest in interior decoration… Maybe some new ideas will bloom in the future.” Hadid’s Hepburn portraits might one day have company from Sézane homeware.