It may be surprising that, until a few years ago, Lisa Favreau and Lisa Guedel-Dolle – the French designers behind the collection of pleated silks and tinted with Azur plants – did not yet know that the Coreopsis blossoms would give a hushed golden hue, or that the St. John’s Wort powder could create both a vivid pistachio and a dark olive green. “It’s a bit like cooking,” says Favreau over the phone from their studio in Marseille, where the thirty-something duo learned by themselves how to create the unique shades that have become their calling card.

Since its launch in 2018, Azur has discreetly redefined “French women’s fashion”, emphasizing sustainability and secular regional craftsmanship. The plant extracts arrive from the south of France, the patterns are cut and sewn by a neighboring seamstress, and a century-old family workshop in Marseille, run by two sisters, hand folds the brand’s organic and cruelty-free silks, which lend themselves naturally to easygoing shell dresses, square neck camisoles and comfy long sleeve tops. “For us, fabric is everything,” says Favreau, a former textile designer. “We like the simplicity of the form with this kind of magical material.

Magic is a word for it. Available in just two sizes, the slightly stretchy pleats – which can be dressed up or down, layered or worn alone – hug a range of silhouettes and shapes, as seen in the Azure streetcast collections. “Marseille is a very mixed city,” says Favreau. “There are people from everywhere, so it was important for us to represent [that]. The upcoming palette of cream, strawberry, and spring petal pink is not modeled by a fringed and thin Jane Birkin lookalike, but rather by local designers, like a 70-year-old weaver, curator of the gallery at Purpose non-profit Car 14, and Favreau’s full sister who was nearby when photographer Pierre Girardin clicked Real clothes for real women? Yes.