Stéphane Jam­bois is the fam­i­ly head of Four­ni­val Altesse in Mouy. This com­pa­ny, which has been recog­nised as part of France’s liv­ing her­itage since 2017, pro­duces most of its brush­es under the Altesse Stu­dio brand, rang­ing from mass-mar­ket prod­ucts to lux­u­ry items and hair­dress­ing brush­es. Inter­ac­tions want­ed to meet this character!

Stéphane Jam­bois’ career com­bines com­merce, indus­try and crafts­man­ship, with train­ing in man­age­ment and com­merce com­ple­ment­ed by sev­er­al years in the man­age­ment of a small busi­ness with high added val­ue in the craft sec­tor. He joined Four­ni­val Altesse 15 years ago, where the trans­mis­sion of know-how and prod­uct excel­lence were at the heart of the strat­e­gy. “This allowed me to devel­op a sen­si­tiv­i­ty to qual­i­ty, inno­va­tion and the preser­va­tion of tra­di­tions. I felt a huge respon­si­bil­i­ty and great pride in the idea of grow­ing and sus­tain­ing such a long-stand­ing com­pa­ny. Four­ni­val Altesse embod­ies a liv­ing her­itage, with near­ly 150 years of his­to­ry and was award­ed the label as an Entre­prise du Pat­ri­moine Vivant (Liv­ing Her­itage Com­pa­ny). Grow­ing this com­pa­ny means help­ing to pre­serve rare exper­tise, pro­mot­ing French excel­lence and pass­ing on an indus­tri­al and human her­itage to future gen­er­a­tions,’ says Stéphane Jam­bois, whose ambi­tion for the future of Four­ni­val Altesse is to strength­en its posi­tion as an inter­na­tion­al leader in lux­u­ry brush man­u­fac­tur­ing, while remain­ing deeply root­ed in its local area. This involves inno­va­tion in mate­ri­als, design and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty, as well as the devel­op­ment of cus­tomised ranges for major lux­u­ry hous­es and pre­mi­um brands.

Several projects and investments are underway

“We are cur­rent­ly invest­ing in the mod­erni­sa­tion of our pro­duc­tion tools to com­bine tra­di­tion and indus­tri­al per­for­mance. We are also work­ing on projects relat­ed to sus­tain­abil­i­ty: biobased mate­ri­als, eco-designed pack­ag­ing and enhanced trace­abil­i­ty of our sup­plies,” adds Stéphane Jam­bois. Lux­u­ry prod­ucts have a future because they are backed by gen­uine exper­tise. “Lux­u­ry con­sumers are chang­ing. They are no longer look­ing for just a prod­uct, but a sto­ry, ethics and com­mit­ment. When it is authen­tic, exper­tise becomes a key dif­fer­en­tia­tor. That is why com­pa­nies that can com­bine crafts­man­ship, trans­paren­cy and inno­va­tion will be the lead­ers in lux­u­ry tomor­row,” says Stéphane Jam­bois, who is also delight­ed with the their col­lab­o­ra­tion with UTC. “The col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy at Com­piègne is invalu­able. It allows us to ben­e­fit from cut­ting-edge skills in tech­ni­cal and sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise, inno­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer, an indus­try-ori­ent­ed project approach, con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and co-con­struc­tion. This type of part­ner­ship pro­motes the hybridi­s­a­tion of tra­di­tion and moder­ni­ty, which is essen­tial to guar­an­tee the com­pet­i­tive­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our business.

Boar bristle and olive tree wood

 It takes between 10 and 40 man­u­al process steps to make a brush. Altesse Stu­dio has cho­sen to make its brush­es from olive wood. This wood comes from olive farms. Once they are too old and no longer pro­duc­tive, the olive trees are cut down and replaced. These trees live for an aver­age of between 50 and 100 years. ‘The boar bris­tle comes from Asia, as this is the only source that has exist­ed since 1950, recog­nised by hair­dressers as the only nat­ur­al mate­r­i­al com­posed of ker­atin, like hair. Altesse Stu­dio brush­es are made from the finest part of the boar’s hair, which crafts­men call ‘the root’. This qual­i­ty of boar’s “silk”, with its round­ed tip, is gen­tler on the scalp. But it is also the stiffest part of the bris­tles, ensur­ing per­fect brush­ing,’ explains Stéphane Jam­bois. This supe­ri­or qual­i­ty, com­bined with a unique bris­tle-fill­ing tech­nique mas­tered by Altesse Stu­dio, is also reflect­ed in the way the bris­tles are pre­pared and implant­ed on the brush at dif­fer­ent heights. This ‘tapered’ tech­nique is the only one that allows the hair to be per­fect­ly sep­a­rat­ed and untan­gled while adding volume.

KD