Foreigners who land on Indian shores to live and work often go through a disorienting phase of intense curiosity pivoted on a degree of culture shock. There are, however, always exceptions. One such is French fashion designer and fine-leather specialist Cedric Courtin. From the moment of his arrival in Chennai in 2005, he says, he knew he “was going to spend my life here”. “It was small, simple things; for instance, the way a rava dosa is made. In Brittany, we have a famous buckwheat pancake called a galette, and the implement used to make both is identical,” he says, rapidly scrolling through his phone for images of the long spatula used to flip the trademark staples. In addition, there was the familiarity of a diverse and long-established French community in Pondicherry, a couple of hours’ drive along the coast from Chennai.
Pondicherry Home: Coast to Coast
Digging in his heels, the 42-year-old Courtin—whose rigorous background in fashion design includes a postgraduate degree from the prestigious Institut Français de la Mode in Paris and experience in producing leisure and sportswear—was so keen to stay on that, for a couple of years, he worked for a tsunami relief organisation in Tamil Nadu. Then, a Parisian friend flagged him for help: to source and produce intricate jewellery in leather. It was the impetus for a highly innovative outpouring. Today, the neat white board with the words ‘Ateliers Courtin, Leather Traders’ that announces his small but busy first- floor workshop in Alandur, the bustling wholesale trade market in Chennai, opens on to a beehive of creativity.
Learning the hard way—in keeping overheads low and establishing a network of quality fabricators—Courtin has prospered. Chennai is where it all started, and it remains the hub of Courtin’s global enterprise: leather is sourced from Italy, France, Korea and Brazil and a variety of eco-friendly grasses for baskets with leather handles and trimmings from as far afield as Manipur, Spain and China.
Pondicherry Home: Quiet Moments
But it is a truth universally acknowledged that an energetic, restless spirit behind a start-up will need a release from the frenetic pace of city life. For Courtin, the diversion has always been regular weekend getaways to the relaxed vibe of Pondicherry, with its sprawl of Auroville’s francophone community and easy access to a variety of European restaurants and patisseries. In search of a place of repose, for some years, Courtin rented a small seaside cottage on Serenity Beach with red roof tiles around which he built a garden.
Pondicherry Home: Perfect Retreat
When the lease ran out, he went looking—and found something original and unexpectedly zany in a bustling village. His new retreat is a three-storeyed, Rapunzel-like tower with a small footprint, set in a corner of a garden. Three rooms, all five-by-six feet, are stacked one upon the other, and linked by a concrete spiral staircase on a single shaft without rails: A tiny kitchen and dining area on the ground floor, with a bedroom and bath on the first floor and, at the top, a glazed lounge and sun room that Pondicherry-based architect Poonam Mulchandani helped him design.
Pondicherry Home: Putting it Together
The leather designer’s friend Vincent Roy, the well-known Pondicherry-based cabinetmaker and founder of design studio Wood’n Design who crafted the dining chairs, bed and shelving, jokingly refers to the idiosyncratic tower as “Cedric’s lighthouse”—a reference to the collection of miniature replicas of Brittany’s lighthouses that Courtin collects, which are lined up along a windowsill. With the help of friends such as Roy, he has furnished his tower with simplicity and air.
Pondicherry Home: Special Possessions
“Because it is a holiday home, it had to be light. It is full of handmade objects and furniture made locally by wonderful craftspeople,” says the designer. All his possessions for his weekend retreat pack into three aluminium trunks, which inventively hold up the birch-ply bookshelves in his bedroom with its flooring of curaçao-coloured cement.
Pondicherry Home: Touch of Whimsy
Courtin put in new windows and doors to the bare shell of the tower and added elements of fantasy and good fortune as a flourish; for instance, the three circular maps of the world etched in leather of three places he loves—France, India and South America—are displayed on a living room wall. In the kitchen hangs a sheaf of wheat from Brittany that his sister brought him as a symbol of luck. And in the tiny bathroom, three pieces of white marble are slung on a nautical rope to serve as shelving.
Pondicherry Home: Smooth Landing
The tower is set in a one-acre plot—an overgrown piece of land with desiccated trees when he acquired it—that is being gradually tamed and replanted with a profusion of palms, banana, pineapple, papaya, fragrant flowering trees and a cactus collection. Much of the living is outdoors. In shady arbours, Courtin has created spaces for seating and al fresco dining. A vegetable patch is up-and-coming with tomato, chilli, radish, sweet potato, basil and varied greens. “Healthy, home-grown produce for fresh meals eaten with a few friends in the garden,” says Courtin. “I love nothing more than digging and planting the land from Friday evening to Monday morning. It’s the perfect way to cleanse my mind and recharge my energy for a stressful week in the city.”
Courtin’s weekend retreat has a decidedly rural feel. It is both an escape and a sanctuary—a successful French entrepreneur’s private haven—far from the madding crowd.
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