It recalls a romantic getaway in Brittany, the birth of the youngest child, or a happy Mother’s Day. In a month, tens of thousands of these “first name bowls” are getting ready to accompany their family reunion on the occasion of the Christmas holidays. At the earthenware factory in Pornic (Loire-Atlantique) where they have been hand painted since 1947, orders are linked to arrive under the tree on time. “We made three to four times more direct sales during this period,” explains Franck Picart, production manager. But the bulk of our production remains in the summer, at our 300 retail stores in the West. In fact, we broke our historic record in August! “
Kitsch for some, traditional for others, the essential Pornicais bowl is on the rise. With the rise of home-made products, and the big boom in the Brittany destination, production has never been so good, exceeding 400,000 pieces in recent years. On the ground floor of the warehouse, which has remained the same for 75 years, pallets of “biscuits”, these bowls in the raw state, arrive from Portugal. Because contrary to popular belief, the bowls themselves are not made in France, and this since the manufacture of Loire-Atlantique detached itself from the parent company, in Niderviller (Moselle). On the other hand, the enamelling and the decoration are done there, without a big machine except an impressive oven, in which the pieces pass twice for 11 hours, at 1,080 degrees.
A thousand first names a day!
On the first floor, behind his small desk, Jany dips his brush in a pink pigment, which will turn blue after the famous firing. This decorator (there are about fifteen of them) is a specialist in “net”, this line of paint on the edge of the bowl, which must be applied “by pressing lightly then more and more” while manually turning the object. Beside, his colleague dabs both ears with a sponge while a third, with a confident gesture, connects the inscriptions in the style of writing specific to earthenware, which would take “between three and six months” to master. “In addition, it is important not to make mistakes in the spellings,” smiles the one who sometimes writes a thousand first names a day. Especially since we sometimes have original requests. “
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Of course, the classics Camille, Louise, Louis, Emma and Marie remain the most popular. But the inscriptions are more and more varied (like Marie-Francine, at the request of Valérie Lemercier) since the pottery opened in 2015 its “configurator” of bowl to personalize online, with nearly 2,500 different models, for 25 euros, shipping costs included. While some pieces are still hand painted in Pornic, the best sellers, with the couple of little Bretons in mind, are printed using “chromos”, kinds of decals that other employees stick to the chain, at the back of the workshop, before sending the object to firing. “In total, between six and seven people work on the same bowl”, calculates Franck Picart, next to a stall of mugs.
The bowl with blue ears always winning
Because if the bowl is the timeless star of earthenware, leader in the field, a lot of other pieces are also decorated here. In the factory shop, just in front of the warehouse, we tear up the mugs, napkin holders, but also those funny dividing dishes (which allow the cake to be cut into equal parts) stamped with multiple decorations such as Bécassine , whose license was obtained ten years ago. But if each year, new artists collaborate, it is always the bowl with the blue ears that wins in the end. “We had made attempts to canvass other regions, with cicadas, orange sponges, remembers Franck Picart. But it didn’t go well… nothing to do with Brittany! “