Born in Paris, Valentine Fillol-Cordier enrolled at 15 into Auguste Renoir, an applied art lycée, to study graphic design, but left for London a year later to pursue a career in fashion as a model, and later as a stylist and creative director. She has since worked across a variety of disciplines, such as scenography, costume, interior and set design. Fillol-Cordier cites being raised by her mother and grandmother ‘in a household with a tradition of applied crafts and a love of things well-made’ as of great inspiration. In 2023, she began talking weekly classes at the Royal Drawing School. ‘In my drawings,’ she says, ‘I am in search of proportion, leaving space within the composition to communicate a feeling and to ask questions of (myself and) the viewer and to leave room for interpretation and dialogue.’ 

An exhibition of Fillol-Cordier’s latest work will be on display at the Le Monde Béryl pop up space in Paris, 24 Rue Saint Roch, 75001, from 24.9.25-4.11.25.

1. Do you have an early memory that you think connects to your creativity now? 

My dear late friend and first (platonic) love the designer Douglas Day Ascencio whom I met when I was 15 taught me things I have carried my entire creative life. He taught me how to look and to see, about references, about proportions and the beauty in the gutter (literally). 

2. How would you explain your rituals, process and practise? 

I work in my living room, on the dining table, on the floor, next to the dining table, in between the dining table and the book cases. Next to the window or late at night with a daylight bulb on a table lamp. Surrounded by books opened and closed, on the floor, on chairs and on the table again.

3. Where have you been finding inspiration recently? 

Memories and Irène Zurkinden. 

4. Whose work has been the biggest influence on you to date? 

I have an enduring fascination with Josef Albers, the Bauhaus and the Black Mountain College.

5. How would you define beauty?

Shock and certainty.