Maker You Should Meet

This week's maker you should meet is Paris based director, set designer and fine artist Alix Bortoli. Alix made a name for herself in 2018 when she created a short film called Mediterranea. The entire film was made out of wood. She hand engraved every single frame. It was so incredible that the Pompidou added it to their permanent collection. From there, every project she makes starts with the materials paper, wood, clay, textile. She spends time in libraries researching what belongs to the story and builds outward from there. She likes starting in a library because that is where I think best and where my inspiration comes alive. One book leads to the next, which leads to new ideas. From there, it's onto mood boards and storyboards than cutting and painting and assembling by hand. The final decisions always happen when she is in contact with the material. She never hesitates to redo or repaint something that doesn't feel right. And her intuition drives everything. She says, I'm not particularly drawn to digital tools. Not that I have anything against them. It's just not something that feels intuitive to me. What feels natural and where I feel truly aligned is making things by hand. There isn't any overthinking or specific reason behind it. So when you see her work for brands like Chanel and Hermes and it doesn't look or feel like a campaign, it looks like a world that someone built with their hands. That's because someone did. I saved her to my maker you should meet collection on Hili, a platform I'm building where real people share the things that they love. Because in a world filled with AI slop, it is refreshing and inspiring to see someone building something with their own two hands, created from their own imagination.