"Phoebe Philo is often credited with launching Chloé's leather goods business in the early aughts and her track record of creating "It" bags at both Chloé and Celine is nothing to scoff at. That being said, Annabelle Volaire Levassor played a crucial role in getting Chloé's bag business off the ground — and in introducing the Paddington, amongst others — working alongside Philo as the house's leather goods manager.

Unlike the rest of the Chloé team, Volaire Levassor actually stepped away from the brand before Philo resigned, moving to German brand Rena Lange in 2005, where she worked for four years before returning to Chloé as the head of accessories from 2010 until 2011. In 2011, Volaire Levassor left Chloé once again, this time to launch an eponymous leather goods consulting business, through which she has had an influence on number of labels including Lemaire, Paco Rabanne, Ports 1961, Haider Ackermann and, yes, Chloé."
Fashionista

"It has been a great pleasure to collaborate with you and I would like to thank you for all your support and patience all the way through this project... The leather goods was a successful launch and we are hoping that this is the beginning of a very fruitful category. You helped us set up the framework and the base of this business unit and we are very thankful for all your hard work and dedication."

"Thank you for all of your help with the VBL project.Your attention to detail and dedication to the project was really impressive – it was a real pleasure to work with you in the day to day getting all of that under way and navigating the particular challenges!"

"Annabelle is an absolute pleasure to work with. She has a strong background in Accessories which makes her an asset to any company. Extremely organised, with a good eye for details and knowledge on all aspects of Product Development. I would highly recommend Annabelle and look forward to working with her again."

"Dear Annabelle, thank you so much for all your help and hard work. I love the bags on our AW19 show !"

"Annabelle found collaborative and passionate craftsmen perfectly adapted to the objects which we wanted to develop. Its benevolence, its patience and its humor are precious in a spontaneous and impromptu creative process. It is a pleasure to work with her."

"Annabelle helped us to launch the Leathergoods at Lemaire. Dynamic and strongly involved in the project, she enabled to translate a creative ideal into reality."

"I had the opportunity to work with Annabelle on two different sourcing missions. Her deep work enabled us to get a clear vision of our competitors’ sourcing strategy. She supplied us with a "turn-key" list of potential partners, which she completely evaluated combining both objective criteria and an interesting feeling regarding their profile and reliability."

"Annabelle Volaire has demonstrated a (too) rare double marketing and style competence. Her market approach and her precious product sensibility are essential for getting the right product positioning as well as an appealing creativity, which makes the difference..."

"We are happy to pursue our collaboration on a long term basis. You have perfectly succeeded in translating the spirit of Paul & Joe brand into a leather goods collection together with bringing a visible and elegant identity. Your creative inputs mixed with Sophie Mechaly’s ideas, enable an interesting development which is mostly important for the future. Besides, we appreciate the fluidity of our collaboration, your availability and your reactivity which are adding to your expertise and market knowledge. All theses points were very helpful in our product development strategy."

"Annabelle realized a rigorous, clever and complete audit which enabled us to restructure totally the Gégard Darel Leather Goods business."

“Thanks to her great experience, Annabelle naturally brought her professionalism, enthusiasm and technical knowledge at Haider Ackermann company. From market survey to the collection plan construction, from materials sourcing to the follow up in the factories, Annabelle payed a key role in the shoes and accessories development. I can only recommend her to any company wishing to structure and evolve."

“I really appreciated our collaboration as well as your creative energy, your ability to quickly enter into the matter, your analytical and synthetical mind, your appealing range of colours, your pertinence to build up collections and your ingenuity to create !"

“Our most important fellow traveller on the road was Annabelle Volaire Levassor, our product manager and consultant on the accessory project. Her vast experience in the developement of luxury leather goods was born through the creation of iconic pieces for high-end brands, such as Chloé. Hereby we would like to thank her for helping us to realize this project."

"Annabelle Volaire created the Accessories business of Chloé in May 2001. Annabelle has a deep sense of the product and a strong motivation. She is a born entrepreneur, extremely persevering and hard-working. Annabelle has a good sense of human relationship and knows how to motivate the teams around her. I do recommend her."

"In the Fashion industry in which it is extremely important to be anticipating, entrepreneurial and product-focused, Annabelle has demonstrated her strong ability to achieve excellent results when Chloé launched their leather product offer."

"I appreciated Annabelle’s talent and professionalism through the collections she built for the Printemps. A high sense of fashion mixed with a great capacity to negociate resulted into an excellent co-worker."

"I appreciated her team spirit, her feeling for persons and her ability to quickly analyse a situation. Besides, Annabelle has a singular quality : she knows how to be combative without being aggressive, which not always goes together."