5 minutes with Cédille Paris’ Carmen Aoun

In 2015, Carmen Aoun transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary and created Cédille Paris. Her designs are distinctive and made to accessorise the modern woman of today. We caught a few minutes of her time so she could formally introduce Cedille Paris to Africa.

1. Cédille Paris’ works are marked by originality, refinement, modernity, luxury, and elegance. How do you consistently maintain relevance with your designs?

The whole team in the company lives the DNA of the brand. It is our culture that is reflected in the brand. The common attributes between the brand and the team preserve consistency in order to achieve excellence in creativity.

As a brand, we maintain our reverence by working as a team on our designs and collections. Creativity and innovation are always the core focus that drives us to create new products and designs.

2. With your knowledge in gemology and jewellery design, what insights and trends have you seen emerge within this industry?

What we have seen is that the industry no longer wants to wear jewellery tailored for occasions and big pieces but rather everyday and affordable pieces so that they can purchase in mass and always be up-to-date with the trend. Having said that, there has been a wide acceptance of integrating strong colours and stones into fine jewellery. Cédille uses its knowledge of gemology to create pieces for everyday wear with high quality while maintaining affordable prices. The whole purpose is to have the woman feel confident, bold, and stylish when wearing a Cédille piece.

3. Can you give us some insider details behind ‘Into the Wild’ and what inspired this collection?

“Into the wild” collection is inspired by the beauty of nature. This simple inspiration brought these designs with such exhaustive and comprehensive details to life. From frogs to reindeer, moon to sun, leaves to fruits, and so on, Cédille uses mother nature as the inspiration, our slogan for this collection is “Back to silence, back to meditation, back to nature.” The gems used for this collection were Emerald, Tsavorite and Malachite as they portray the greenery that is perceived in nature. We complemented these gems with brown diamonds as a reminder of how splendid nature is.

4. What challenges in the past have you had with reaching the African market?

We planned to develop Cédille worldwide, starting from Europe to the USA, the Middle East, and now the time has come to explore the opportunities in Africa. We are confident that our collaboration with Lux Afrique will add value to our brand. Our unique and daring designs will be a perfect match with African consumers’ tastes.

5. Are you currently working on anything new? If yes, can you give us a sneak peek of what we can expect?

Cédille is always working on new products. Last year, our designers worked on the “Cédille Moi” collection, which consisted of the logo in many bright colours. We are very confident in this collection, considering it is very affordable.

In other words, “Cédille Moi” is going to be the trend of Summer.

6. What do you think about Lux Afrique Boutique and its offering to all 54 African countries?

#LuxAfriqueBoutique will become “the” place for brands to market their products in the African market. Lux Afrique will change Africa’s fashion for the better by getting some of the best and most luxurious brands into?54 African countries. Its platform will set a new trend by helping to expand the fashion industry in all of these countries.