La Fabrique Nomade: integration through universal gesture
Under the vaults of the Viaduc des Arts, La Fabrique Nomade brings, through a human and creative vision, the possibility for refugee and migrant artisans to find not only a profession, but also dignity and meaning. Since it was founded in 2016 by Inès Mesmar, the association has been deploying a professional integration model that enhances exceptional savoir-faire in the hands of people from many countries and connects them to the French market.
Through both technical and social support, the association builds a bridge between the individual stories of craftsmen and the Luxury houses or workshops looking for skilled labor. In this context, its "Trait d'Union" collections become veritable showcases of savoir-faire, highlighting often-invisible career paths.
A story told through the language of savoir-faire
The story of the association began with a precious moment when Inès Mesmar discovered fine embroidery at her parents' home in 2015, bearing witness to her mother's professions in her native Tunisia. A savoir-faire she had silently abandoned, convinced that it was "no big deal". This discovery, concomitant with the news of the refugee camps in Paris, provoked an awakening: Inès Mesmar recognized in it a loss not just of a craft, but of an identity. Trained as an ethnologist, she began to investigate, inviting herself into the shelters to meet people with broken backgrounds but endowed with a talent sidelined by an orientation towards jobs in tension but "deskilling". She sees in this gap not only a professional injustice, but also a "rupture".
Yet, "the language of the hand is a universal language, she expresses, it is a vector of inclusion". In the association's workshop, people may not speak the same language and yet understand each other through a gesture. "Savoirs have been on the move since the dawn of time. Migration continues to circulate them, and La Fabrique Nomade brings them together", she sums up. This reunion involves recruiting from a network of 1,000 prescribers (France Travail, shelters, associations). Those interested undergo a technical assessment and a motivational interview. Over 100 applications are received each year, but only 17 places will be approved in 2025. The team must therefore select profiles according to state-imposed criteria (age, gender, distance from employment), a step "often frustrating as the potential is so great", testifies the founder.
Certified training close to workshop and studio techniques
La Fabrique Nomade relies on structured training and comprehensive support "by creating an initial support pathway, then certification training and now the insertion workshop, it explains. Today, 130 artisans have been supported, representing 38 nationalities around 22 craft professions". Currently, it employs a multi-disciplinary team (technical referents, social worker, trainers, production managers) to support craftsmen on a daily basis and focuses on 3 professions: garment making, embroidery and jewelry.
The workshop has 12 machine stations for textiles, as well as specialized equipment. Craftsmen in training are supported towards an increase in skills, but also to "adapt to the requirements of French manufacturing", she explains. Depending on needs and customer profiles, artisans in training learn to work in assembly lines on specific stages or on parts from A to Z. They also learn to read the technical documents used in the workshops or Homes most of them aim to join at the end of the training.
The course lasts between 9 and 11 months, combining workshop practice, French lessons, individual and group coaching. Craftsmen are immersed in real working conditions: they produce for real customers, on real projects, while being trained, monitored and supported. After training, a corporate relations officer helps them find their place in the professional world over a two-year period. Thanks to this model, Inès Mesmar predicts a 92% insertion rate by 2024, even if she notes a slight slowdown recently in the face of economic difficulties.
The association first went through a long process to obtain its first certification, a demanding process that clarified and strengthened its entire training engineering. Its own reference framework, structured around twenty skills and filed with France Compétences, was never validated, however. It was thanks to two years of collaboration with the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode that an industry-recognized reference framework was born. A breakthrough that now enables them to pass the Opérateur en Confection Textile certification, which the workshop's dressmakers will present for the first time in March 2026.
Traits d'Union: a showcase of solidarity-based crafts
One of the pillars of the association is the Trait d'Union collection, conceived as a showcase of skills, this collaborative line renewed each year highlights the savoir-faire of trained artisans: recognized designers voluntarily imagine pieces, artisans technically co-create and the final object "demonstrates the savoir-faire", explains Inès Mesmar. For the tenth collection, Ludovic Winterstan, designer, couturier, freelance technical fashion designer, is working on ready-to-wear pieces, while Matthias Schneider (Home Louis Vuitton) has been signing the jewelry, for 3 years already. In March 2026, the association aims to present this collection at Paris Fashion Week. A strong foothold in the ecosystem with, in particular, the LVMH group, which has supported the initiative for several years, not only through sponsorship, but also through HR workshops, interviews and exchanges.
This beautiful mechanism comes up against a major obstacle: funding. The drop in public subsidies, some 30% less according to the founder, is jeopardizing the project's sustainability. To remedy this, the association has launched its first donation campaign, and has no intention of giving up. In her view, craftsmanship is more than an economy: it's a bridge between cultures, an engine of social recognition. And companies can play a crucial role in this dynamic of inclusion in the face of the "uptightness" she identifies in society."Today, it's a question of reaching out to them [companies] and finding those who will want to participate and get involved with us". All the more so as the artisans coming out of La Fabrique Nomade are invaluable to the workshops and Homes: "Companies are going to look for dexterity in our certified artisans. They originally learned their trade in a much more open, resourceful and astute way than in France, where learning the savoir-faire is highly standardized", explains the founder.
La Fabrique Nomade, under the management of Inès Mesmar, demonstrates just how much artisanal savoir-faire migrates and reinvents itself. By giving voice and tools back to refugee artisans, the association isn't just repairing a rupture: it's building unions between individual stories and luxury workshops and Homes, between ancestral gestures and modern demands.
To find out more, discover La Fabrique Nomade's enterprise fact sheet.
