Objects of Enduring Beauty
We are a small luxury house making things that last. Everything we sell was made by a person whose name we know, in a place we have visited, using materials we can trace to their source.
A linen shirt and a question
Arcana began with a single question: why does everything fall apart? Clara Morin, then working as a textile designer in Lyon, bought a linen shirt from a market stall in Bruges in 2011. She is still wearing it.
The shirt was not expensive. It was made by a weaver who had learned from his father, using techniques unchanged in three centuries. The price reflected craft, not brand. She began asking why this was so rare.
With her husband Étienne — a leather goods maker with a workshop in the Périgord — she spent two years identifying the last remaining practitioners of the techniques they admired: linen weavers, vegetable tanners, stone carvers, ceramicists. The people who had not optimised for speed.
In 2012, they made 200 linen shirts from the Bruges workshop. They sold them from a table at a Paris design fair. By the end of the weekend, they were gone. Arcana began.
Founded in Lyon by Clara and Étienne Morin, with a single linen textile run of 200 pieces.
First leather collaboration with the Garonne tannery in Ribérac. The cognac tote sells out in three days.
Opened the Paris atelier on Rue du Temple. Began working with ceramicist Hélène Morin.
First international collection. Stocked in six countries. Still made by fewer than forty artisans.
Launched the Objects line. Furniture, vessels, lights — all repaired or replaced for life.
Committed to zero virgin plastic in all packaging. Switched to reclaimed kraft and linen cloth wrapping.
Artisans
Makes every Arcana vessel alone, by hand, in a converted stable outside the city. Refuses to work with moulds.
One of three remaining draw-loom weavers in Belgium. Has been weaving linen for forty years. Will not rush.
Made once, kept forever
We design everything to outlast a trend cycle. If you buy it from us, it should still be with you in twenty years.
Named makers only
Every object on this site was made by a specific person in a specific place. We know them. We will introduce you.
Repair over replace
We maintain a repair service for every object we have ever sold. Bring it back. We will fix it.
Slow production
We do not respond to trends with new collections. We make things when they are ready. Sometimes that takes three years.
“Come slowly. Choose carefully. Buy the thing you will still want in fifteen years.”