MAISON DE CUIR ET D'ARGENT · LONDRES
The house of Malgré-Lui was founded in London in 2024 by Nathan Aflalo-Benhalima. It works in leather, sterling silver and ready-to-wear, and extends its design language to objects and, through its Design Studies, to the home.
Its name, French for in spite of himself, describes a figure: one who acts on instinct, without seeking a reason or an audience. He chooses what feels right rather than what will be noticed, and the house makes its pieces for those who choose the same way.
Born in Paris, Nathan Aflalo-Benhalima moved to London, where the house grew from his interest in fine things and the way they are made. He finds his starting points outside fashion, in a tattoo, the fittings of a house, a moulding on a building or the form of an animal, and designs every piece with its making in mind, down to the way it will be cast.
HÉRITAGE
The house takes its sense of structure from Paris: the symmetry, the alignment of its cornices and the precision of its carved mouldings. Whatever its starting point, each design is first reduced to its structure, and only then given detail.
London, where the house was founded and is based, brings what Paris does not: contrast, colour and a certain roughness, in a city where Gothic, Georgian and brutalist buildings stand side by side. The house is shaped by the tension between the two cities.
The house works in sterling silver and pairs it with leather. Both materials have been worked by hand for millennia, and both improve with age: silver darkens in its recesses and brightens where it is touched, while leather takes on the shape and patina of its owner.
Developing a new piece can take several months: the pattern is drawn, the hardware designed from scratch, the leathers and fabrics sourced, and samples are made until the piece is right. Most of the stitching, finishing and engraving is done by hand, in independent workshops in London and abroad; the rugs of the Design Studies, for instance, are made in Morocco. Every piece is made to order, and some are made only once.
The house works outside the fashion calendar. It presents no seasonal collections, and pieces are released when they are ready. The jewellery and leather are made to be kept for a lifetime and, in time, passed on.
Bespoke commissions, undertaken since before the house was first presented, are accepted on request.
