dear community
many of you have been following les solides for years, but i realized i’ve never really told the full story of how it started.
and the funny thing is: it didn’t start with jewelry.
it started in bali.
when i moved there, i rented a house that later became villa solid. i began renovating and furnishing it together with local craftspeople, designing furniture and objects for the space and slowly discovering the incredible craftsmanship of the island.
one project led to another. i started creating furniture for local hotels and cafés, experimenting with materials and meeting more makers along the way.
but furniture wasn’t exactly easy to bring back to switzerland — so i started thinking smaller.
in 2017, the first les solides bag collection was born.
one of those pieces was the mum bag, which i designed together with my mum. she started wearing it in bern, people kept asking her where it was from, and slowly the bags found their way from bali to switzerland.
that was really the beginning of les solides.
at the time, it wasn’t about building one specific product category. it was about creating things i loved — simple objects, good materials, local craftsmanship and pieces made to stay.
through the people i met in bali, i later discovered a small family-run workshop working with silver.
i had always loved jewelry and started experimenting with a few pieces of my own.
simple, timeless, well made.
from around 2018 onwards, jewelry became an increasingly important part of les solides — and today it is at the heart of what we do.
but les solides has never only been about jewelry.
bags, objects, collaborations and other pieces have always been part of our world, and i hope they always will be.
over the years, les solides grew from those first projects in bali into something much bigger than i ever imagined — from markets and stockists to our own spaces, a team and a community around the brand.
the mint store in bern and OURS in zurich. both were projects close to my heart, bringing together brands, objects and ideas i loved. they taught me a lot about creating spaces and communities — and laid the foundation for what would later become the les solides showroom.
earlier this year, i shared that i wanted to simplify again.
in april, we opened our first les solides store in zurich.
for me, it feels like a physical expression of the les solides world — a place for our own collections, but also for objects, designers and products we genuinely love ourselves.
a space to discover, meet, collaborate and bring together the things that inspire us.
and then, at the end of july, life brought another unexpected chapter.
i got meningitis and had to suddenly step away from much of the day-to-day work.
after almost ten years of being involved in nearly every part of les solides, learning to let go has been a challenge of its own.
right now, sofia and michelle are carrying much of the daily work while i continue to recover, and i’m incredibly grateful to have them by my side.
when i look back at villa solid, the first bags and those early jewelry experiments, i definitely didn’t imagine where it would all lead.
there was never one big masterplan.
just curiosity, people, craftsmanship and one idea leading to another.
thank you for being part of it.
anna
founder of les solides
