The Story Behind a Beautiful Wishbook
We all love artists' wishbooks, and when a printmaker friend showed up here from Texas with a Savoir Faire catalog under her arm I was prompted to contact them and find out more about this curious company which imports exclusive artists' materials into the U.S.A. from Europe and Asia. I talked with Deirdre Sproul, the sales manager at this distinctive little transnational company. (Here at World Printmakers we're partial to transnational mini companies for some reason.) Deirdre has been at Savoir Faire for five years and knows their lives and legends. Here are our questions and her answers:

Question: How long has SF been in business? What were the origins?
Answer: Savoir-Faire was started by Maureen Labro 20 years ago. Maureen, with a French father and American mother, came from France to study at Berkeley and it was there that she started importing Sennelier Silk Dyes out of her kitchen and selling them around the US. Sennelier are the makers of what we consider to be the world's finest oils, watercolors and pastels. Dominique Sennelier was a chemist in France in the mid-19th century and artists would come to him to ask if he could mix certain colors... impressionist colors. Thus his company was born with the French Impressionists and continues to expand and prosper today. This was the first relationship forged by Maureen Labro, but today Savoir Faire imports art materials from 20 manufacturers all over Europe and Asia.

Maureen met her husband, Pierre Guidetti, at Berkeley where he had also come from France to study, and he joined the company soon after. Today Savoir-Faire is a husband-and-wife team devoted to importing the finest art materials for America's most demanding clients. Those of us who work for Savoir Faire think of ourselves as a French run company, except those who are French and like to say they work for an American company. Both French and English are spoken in the office and this really helps when dealing with Continental manufacturers.

What was the original business case?
A business opportunity to sell little-known top-quality imported papers in the giant US market?

Are all of your products imported?
Yes, everything is imported - from Europe, and Asia.

Is paper the mainstay of the business?
Paper is just one component of our company. We import a diverse range of are materials, and the papers round out our line. We've been importing fine papers for artists for 20 years. Currently we import Fabriano from Italy, specifically the Tiepolo, Rosapina, UNO, Artistico, Roma, Classico-5, Ingres, Murillo and Biblos varieties. Also Larroque from France, Awagami from Japan, and Lama-Li from Nepal. We recently brought in a new line of vellum papers from Switzerland called Optix. Our best selling paper is Fabriano UNO. It is a watercolor, fine art, digital paper as well as a good etching paper. Our decorative papers also do very, very well. Paper is just as important as the other art materials - paints - brushes - canvas etc...that we import.

How many staff did you start out with? How many staff are there today?
If you really go back to the beginning- it was just Maureen and Pierre. Today we are a total of 28 people working for Savoir Faire.

What is your segment of the market, professional artists? Also schools?
We are importers. We sell directly to art stores and distributors. We work directly with schools and also sell to bookstores. We do a lot of promotion in the schools, as well as in stores to educate the public about our products, but we don't sell direct to individuals. Our products are the finest high-end art supplies that artists can use. So our principal market is, of course, the professional artist. Nevertheless, we feel very strongly about making efforts to have our products used and priced so that all artists can have access to them. We concentrate on retail stores and distributors. We do not sell on the internet, but many of them do.

What's your Unique Selling Proposition? Why do your clients buy from you and not somebody else?
It has to do with many things. We forge close relationship with artists and teachers, as well as the business community- art stores nationwide. We work hard to understand the American market and import according to what the market is asking for, knowing what they want and giving them the best products, competitive prices, and finest customer service. Our staff is very well trained and thus can answer technical questions about our products which is a big plus.

Are you the exclusive distributors in the U.S. of certain products? Which?
Yes, Sennlier, ArtFix, Fabriano, CretaColor, Lascaux, Charbonnel, Annesley panels, Jullian easels, Coate's Charcoal, Isabey, Raphael, Lama-Li, Herbin, Awagami, Larroque, Lama-Li Metal, and Industrielle.

We were impressed with your catalog. It's a real artist's wish book. How much do you charge for it?
Normally we don't charge for it as we don't offer it to the end-user. It is mailed to our retail-store, mail-order and distributor customers. We work very hard on our visual image. We are a small company but many people think we are much bigger because of the look of our catalogs and mailings.

Who buys your elegant stationery products?
Everyone from the smallest stationery store to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to famous stationery stores - Kate's Paperie in New York, for example. Martha Stewart Living buys from us, the Sundance catalog, Levenger, more than 50 museums. Basically gift and craft stores thoughout the U.S.

Give us an example of "helping manufacturers to develop new products American consumers want..."
A good example is the case of Fabriano UNO, which we helped to develop a few years ago. We did our research on what artists wanted and back and forth went the samples...into the hands of a team of artists until we came up with UNO, which is today our best-selling paper. We work directly with schools (teachers as well as students), artists and stores to find out what the market trends are. We send out questionnaires, and we lecture across the U.S. Feedback from everyone is very useful. We take that feedback and discuss with the manufacturers what is possible to make for the artist. Once we have an idea of a new product, or even how to improve on an existing one, we work hand in hand with the manufacturer to see to it that our specs are carried out. We have a great marketing team that helps develop new products and our manufactures are always coming up with new ideas for us to review, too.

What are the factors which motivate your clients to use your imported materials?
Absolute quality and the knowledge and service behind each product.

Our thanks to Deirdre Sproul and Savoir Faire.