Nicholas Knightly
Tatler speaks to the creative director of Parisian leather goods maison Moynat on modernising heritage, making icons and teamwork
Back in the late 19th century, if you were an English tourist returning home after a stay in Paris, you would probably carry a Moynat trunk. In 1849, before Louis Vuitton and Goyard existed, Pauline Moynat, the only female trunkmaker at the time, founded the house in partnership with Octavia and François Coulembier. A creator of finely handcrafted luggage and travel goods, Moynat became known for designs suited to railway and automobile travel, as well as for its technological innovations, such as lightweight trunks and waterproof canvas. Now the French maison is opening new boutique in London at Harrods, and Tatler spoke to its creative director Nicholas Knightly a week before the opening.
“We love the authenticity of the heritage, and that brings the quality,” says Knightly, the British designer who took over the creative direction of the house in 2020, adding, “We want to be a bit free and forward-thinking, young and fresh, and [make] bags for today.” Knightly served as Louis Vuitton’s
head of leather goods for more than 15 years, having previously worked at Mulberry.
Despite having worked with very beautiful, high-quality products for years, Knightly still had butterflies when the first bag under his watch was produced, and had nothing but praise for the atelier’s six craftspeople who worked on it. “They really put their personalities and special knowledge into the process. When you give them a sketch, they turn it into a bag,” he says. “[Their craftsmanship] really makes the product sing—i can’t explain it. It’s a bit like a chef cooking, I suppose. A chef has a great palate and they can get the flavours just right.”
Moynat went into hibernation in 1976, and was relaunched in 2011, reaching into its history of 100-plus years and archive for inspiration. Hired to revive the brand, Knightly has spent the past two years translating the team’s love of creativity and sense of spontaneity into his designs. The new releases include a reversible tote bag dreamt up in surprising shades, and an exclusive collection of the house’s star bag, Flori Leather Marquetry 1849, featuring art deco-inspired patterns. Audaciously coloured leather goods are rooted in Moynat’s heritage; its iconic trunks can be spotted from a distance thanks to their coordinated colours and distinctive curved shapes. But achieving this kaleidoscope of colours requires the best-quality raw materials. “They can be translucent or they can be very deep … it’s a kind of poetry with colours,” Knightly says.
This colour-conscious brand DNA keeps the design team both inspired and open to the idea of personalisation. “Someone ordered a Flori bag in white and we didn’t have it,” says Knightly. “We developed the leather and we made it for them—there’s no other bag like that in the world.” This kind of attention to detail applies to everything the brand produces, whether or not it’s made to order: every Moynat bag is hand-stitched and reinforced with box leather— a type of calf leather—instead of the synthetic material more typically found in such pieces. The house is also looking for a vegan leather alternative in response to the demand for animalfree fashion.
While he may hold the title of creative director, Knightly sees the creation of exceptional leather goods as very much a team effort. “It’s a shared experience and it’s very rewarding—not just the success but the feeling that you’ve achieved something together,” he says. Knightly knows what it’s like to see one of his designs reach near-icon status: when he was at Mulberry in the early Noughties, he made the Bayswater tote bag, which exploded. “That was [one of] those moments where you create something like that with a team and it takes off and has a life of its own.” Something similar happened when he was at Louis Vuitton and designed the Neverfull, a bag that remains one of his standout creations.
Now at Moynat, he hopes to repeat that success with a new
It Bag that is in the making, which was due to launch in mid-september—and is possibly his proudest achievement to date. “It’s a new leather and a bit different from Moynat. It’s one of those bags when, every time we’ve shown it to someone, they had a very good reaction,” says Knightly. “And in a few years, if [you ask me about my favourite Moynat design], I will look back and say, ‘Oh, this is the one’.”