So France Is Co – Notebook No. 1

When students from Le Puy sign our Made in France jeans

January 25, 2026

At So France Is Co, we don’t make Made in France jeans to follow a trend or to reassure an algorithm. We do it because producing locally, in Le Puy-en-Velay, is a strong and demanding choice sometimes more complicated, but infinitely more coherent.

Here, every pair of jeans is designed as a whole: the fabric, the cut, the assembly, the finishing. And when you make that choice, you can’t stop halfway…

The devil is in the details… and that’s exactly where I wanted to go.

A Made in France pair of jeans isn’t just about a beautiful fabric or a well-crafted cut. It’s the sum of deliberate decisions, made one by one. The origin of the materials, the way things are produced, the partners we choose to work with… and yes, right down to the button.

In denim, this small metal element is anything but incidental: it’s handled every day, it ages with the jeans, it tells the story of quality over time.

For me, it was impossible to imagine jeans made in Le Puy-en-Velay with a standard, imported, interchangeable button. That would have made no sense. If our jeans are designed, cut, and assembled locally, then every component has to follow the same logic: French manufacturing, durability, high standards.

That’s where this slightly crazy but obvious to me idea came from: creating our own button.

Trusting the youth of Le Puy

Rather than looking elsewhere for a turnkey solution, I chose to look around me. In Le Puy, there is talent young people learning the trades of industry, design, and mechanics. So I entrusted this project to the BTS CPI and CPRP students at Lycée Charles-et-Adrien-Dupuy: imagining a Made in France jean button capable of embodying the DNA of So France Is Co.

I gave them real-world constraints: strength, feasibility, cost. But I deliberately left room for creativity. Because innovation never emerges from a framework that’s too rigid.

The result: thoughtful, varied proposals sometimes bold, sometimes more classic but always grounded in a logic of durable, responsible jeans.

IT ALL BEGINS WITH THE FABRIC

Before it becomes a button, a cut, or a logo, denim is a material born of labor and time.
A return to the origins of a fabric that never cheats.

When an idea takes shape

What struck me most was seeing ideas move from paper to material. Industrial drawings, 3D modeling, printed prototypes, then brass machining on CNC machines. At that point, we’re no longer talking about intention or discourse we’re talking about making jeans in France, with very real industrial constraints.

At that stage, discussions become concrete and genuinely exciting: dimension errors to correct, technical choices to refine, resistance tests to run. Engraving or relief? A proven rivet button or a more innovative mechanism?

These are exactly the same trade-offs we make every day to produce high-quality Made in France jeans, with no compromise on substance.

A signature for our Made in France jeans

This button will never be a mere decorative element. Its purpose is to become a signature. A discreet yet powerful mark, affirming that these jeans made in Le Puy-en-Velay are the result of real commitment, not a slogan. An unapologetic “vellave touch” that tells a different way of doing French fashion.

This collaboration with the students goes far beyond the product itself. It stands for a vision of the French textile industry: local, demanding, educational, and future-oriented. Here, jeans almost become a collective project, a link between generations, craftsmanship, and territory.

In the coming months, one design will be selected. A pre-series will be launched, followed by the pre-industrialization phase with our French partners. And soon, this button will be there fastened to your So France Is Co jeans, made in Le Puy-en-Velay, faithful to the Made in France spirit that has driven us from the very beginning.

A detail, perhaps. But at So France Is Co, it’s precisely these details that make all the difference.

Sébastien Olivier, Founder & Managing Director of So France Is Co