Le Savon Breton opens its workshop at Saint-Brieuc-des-Iffs so that visitors come away hard to catch out on soap. The route runs through the laboratoire, the ingrédients and the méthode de fabrication, which here is saponification à froid. The savonnerie is an entreprise artisanale of the Bretagne romantique and works only with ingredients it selects itself. The boutique opens at the end of the visit.
Tag: craft-demonstrations
Les ateliers de la biscuiterie Joubard
The Biscuiterie Joubard opens its doors at Saint-Thuriau and takes visitors into the making of Breton biscuits. The route runs through the workshops, past the machines and along the production lines. It ends in the factory shop, where the biscuits are sold loose by weight or packed into coffrets cadeaux. The Pontivy Communauté tourist office carries the booking, and what is on show is a Breton biscuit trade still at work in its own commune.
ESAT Les Genêts d’Or opens its workshops, Plabennec
The Établissement et Service d’Accompagnement par le Travail at Plabennec opens its workshops and lets the workers do the talking. The trades shown are groundskeeping, horticulture, printing, brewing and packing. Each is explained by the ESAT workers themselves, who set out their savoir-faire. The jobs are held under adapted conditions by workers with disabilities, and what the visits raise goes to the Fondation du Patrimoine de Bretagne.
Handloom weaving at L’Échoppée Belle, Pontivy
L’Échoppée Belle is a shop run by the makers who stock it, and for this round one of them sets up her loom among them. Anne Grolleau works the handloom in front of visitors and spins wool as she explains how the frame is threaded. She names the textile fibres she uses, says where each comes from, and gives the names of the different cloths. Weaving on a hand frame is one of the oldest trades practised by the Breton artisans who share the shop.
Pointe de Sel: fish leather at a Paimpol atelier
Pointe de Sel works leather drawn from the sea, and for this visit it opens the small atelier-boutique it keeps in the port of Paimpol. The artisans lay out the materials, the tools and each stage of making, then talk through what they are doing. The unusual part is the hide itself: fish skin, whose particular demands the workshop explains as it works. Two people must book for a visit to run, and the rooms take callers with disabilities.
La brosserie d’Art Léonard à Saint-Brieuc
The Léonard workshop at Saint-Brieuc assembles fine brushes for the beaux-arts trade and the big cosmetics houses. It has stayed in the same family for seven generations, and the visit follows that assembly step by step. Saint-Brieuc has been a brushmaking town for over a century: Raphael, Isabey and Léonard, in the Sauer group, are the last three fine-brush names in France. The know-how carries the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant label.
Chaud ! Les châtaignes at La Ferme d’Antan
La Ferme d’Antan hands a whole day to the chestnut, at the hamlet of Saint Esprit des Bois in Plédéliac. The forge is run and loaves go into the oven while old trades are shown at work, beside rooms of autumn varieties, photographs and creative workshops. A meal at midday, tastings and a sale of produce carry the rest of the afternoon. The day ends in a fest-deiz, the dance taken in daylight, behind Asteure, Land Segal Trad and Nomad.
AP Sellerie, an Upholstery Workshop at Auray
François Lamiot has run AP Sellerie since it began, keeping close ties across a wide network of boating professionals. The firm started as a subsidiary of All Purpose, the Trinité-sur-Mer sailmaker, and later took its independence to become Brittany’s largest artisanal upholstery workshop. The visit goes behind the benches of the Toul Garros workshop at Auray. The premises are not accessible to visitors with reduced mobility.
Arc-en-Ciel Imprimeurs, a print works at Lécousse
Arc-en-Ciel Imprimeurs has printed from Lécousse for more than 50 years, and its 12 salaried staff keep the offset and digital presses running for local firms, authorities and associations. The guided tour crosses the workshops step by step, following production from books to advertising panels. The trade on show is at once traditional, technical and constantly evolving. Photography is prohibited inside, so nothing leaves on a phone.
Crazy Lobster composite workshop, Saint-Brieuc
Crazy Lobster shapes technical parts from carbon and glass fibre, a Breton workshop whose first customers were boats. The round crosses the shop floor zone by zone: machining, painting, infusion, sanding. A part is carried from development through prototyping and testing to a finished piece. The firm’s history lies in pleasure sailing and offshore racing, the trade this coast is known for, and that know-how now goes elsewhere in industry.