Home with Marc Briant-Terlet

The 20th, around Belleville, is a part of Paris on the up, a little bit bohemian. On an easy morning we walk past cafes and Chinese restaurants, smart dogs and smarter owners ambling in unison and couples smoking outside of said cafes. Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde are buried in Cimetière du Père-Lachaise nearby, which isn’t why we’re here. We’re here to see our friend Marc.

The co-founder of Horace, a very good men’s grooming company that has stores all over France and, in the very near future, London, Marc lives here with his wife and young son. There are exposed floorboards and a Slim Aarons photograph on the wall, Phillipe Starck ‘ghost’ chairs around the dining room table, children’s books and a painting of the Italian island Pantelleria, done by his wife after a memorable holiday. Coffee brews slowly on the stove. 

“When I’m here, it’s for family,” says Marc, “The separation of work and personal is important for me. We’ve had the company for seven years now, and it’s been a really nice ride. It’s come from basically nowhere."

"I come from a middle-class family in a poor area of France, very mixed socially. Kim [my business partner] is from the rugby region of south West France. We have very different backgrounds and body shapes, and we we didn’t see our friends or family represented in the business.”

“In France we’re very good at cosmetics, but we wanted to have a design that is a fresh take on a traditional way of grooming.”

And Horace? A treasured friend’s name, or a family title? “It was just from a first name book! It’s not my grandfather’s name, or something particularly important.

“We wanted something with resonance… and it felt good!”