La Femme Qui Rit

Femme Qui Rit is more than a brand. It is a philosophy of life for founder & designer Femke Mostert.

Femme Qui Rit is part of a larger social enterprise. The designer believes in collaboration and bringing together, the power of diversity and doing and experiencing things herself. There are 3 main pillars that are important in the company: creative, innovative and socially engaged.

At Femme Qui Rit everything still has a piece of value in it. Even people! Sometimes people are not considered valuable either, if they have a blemish or if they have gone a bit off track. The designer works with people in vulnerable positions in the labour market.

For example, the sofas are often collected with people with addiction issues, who help with the dismantling process of leather sofas, and are given the opportunity to learn the trade. She gained her experience in supporting people in these situations in her former life as a reintegration coach.

In her workshop, she is assisted by 2 mothers with a non-European migration background with a distance from the labour market, who can learn a trade with her and get paid!

Femke avoids using new materials, from scrapping old leather sofas and couches that are thrown away, La Femme Qui Rit recycles them into new products.

From the old leather, she makes handbags, dog leashes, notebooks and more!

Chairs are reupholstered. Every nail is carefully removed. Everything sewn together is detached for the pattern. So the old fabric is used as a pattern to cut out the new fabric with. You can choose to stuff it with natural materials or synthetic materials: coconut mats, horsehair, polyester foam, everything comes from old sofas they scrapped for leather.

But equally old banner material from events is transformed into a series of bags. Femke is a creative jack-of-all-trades!

Femke Mostert does not like throwing away, but she is very good at reusing!

“Why throw something away if you can just still use it?” She thinks.

These deep-rooted Calvinist beliefs were instilled in her upbringing as the child of a large family. Clothes passed from child to child to child and everything was reused.

Femke scours Marktplaats for old leather sofas offered for free, or she finds them in landfills. Or you can turn to Femke to have your own discarded family heirloom transformed with a personal and sustainable touch.

She carefully removes, cleans, and transforms the leather into stylish designs. By stripping the sofas herself and removing the leather, she ensures that the material is recycled responsibly and does not end up as waste. From the stuffing of these sofas, she makes cushions for garden furniture, for example.

With her initiative, La Femme Qui Rit, Femke aims to raise awareness about recycling. Nowadays, you can even take workshops at La Femme Qui Rit designs to learn how to make your own leather bag!

Femke Mostert lives with her family on almost 2000 m² in a unique piece of Almere Hout in the Dutch province of Flevoland. At the back of the garden is her self-designed studio among greenery and all kinds of animals: cats, chickens, and rabbits. Inside, it is a cosy chaos of fabrics, cushions, stuffing, and a sewing machine.

Everything is made by hand and all the materials are also collected locally. This results in an exceptionally short production chain and as local as it gets.

La Femme Qui Rit uses only upcycled residual materials, meaning no animals are directly involved in the production process.

Because the brand upcycles residual materials, this also defines the collection. Everything is made in limited editions, depending on stock. Moreover, La Femme Qui Rit also makes customised corporate gifts from the materials companies provides themselves.

La Femme Qui Rit is very transparent and honest.

Because all products are manufactured in-house, it is easy to share detailed information about the production process. This means customers can see exactly how each product is made, from the raw material to the final finish. They not only provide insight into the materials used and their origin, but also the working conditions in which the products are made.