What do our earliest childhood memories say about us? Do they truly foreshadow what defines our future selves? For Sophie Sevigny, it would appear so. “I grew up in a small town in Austria – it’s sort of the Lake District of Austria – and we always spent the summer on the lakeside. I saw this girl I knew going to sailing classes and asked my parents if I could join the school.”
Sevigny grew intrigued by the intricate ropes and knots and their capacity to join and connect. “There was this supplies store,” she reflects. “I’d walk there on this little adventure, buy some rope pieces – one metre at a time – and then practise from my sailing book.” At 18, however, she had to pause her maritime hobby when she moved to London to study fine art at Central Saint Martins. It was an intimidating time, navigating the pangs of first-year unease and the change between her rural upbringing and the hastened streets of the capital.
But it was New York City that really gave Sevigny a sense of purpose and direction. What began as a month-long trip to assist a friend in real estate led to two years in the utopian commune of the Chelsea Hotel, home to a colony of creatives from Jackson Pollock to Patti Smith. Upon meeting her husband, a fellow sailor, she was reminded of the blissful pleasures of her youth through his own passion, and returned to the water once more.
Voyaging out into the serene waters of Nantucket, Sevigny was captivated by its mysticism, from the whaling culture and harpooning to the intricate island crafts. “It was here I saw for the first time an illustration of a mat made from sailing rope and I knew I needed to make one.” And then Sevigny was nine years old all over again, returning to stores and buying rope to construct her own shapes. She was mesmerised by the delicate juxtaposition of utility and beauty. In 2011, her cosmopolitan mats and accessories took flight and her brand SerpentSea began, emphasising a sustainable outlook.
From an innocent tale of childhood recreation, Sevigny hopes to immortalise the enigmatic tales of the vast sea. Her creations are delicately woven in baroque shapes and figures of eight; each piece, from keyring to mat to jewellery, is treated as a one-off, a step towards using and owning more eco-friendly accessories. Sourcing high-quality sailing rope is an expensive and often difficult task, given its continued use. Championing a environmentally focused outlook, Sevigny uses factory rejects that have failed safety tests to ensure that nothing is wasted, prioritising the brand’s conscious commitment to the planet. But these rudimentary materials have only served to stimulate Sevigny’s sense of enjoyment and nostalgia. “I only get a certain amount of metres, so create perhaps three or four mats sometimes. And that’s the fun thing, because you’re almost like a painter. You get a colour, and then you might never get that colour the same way again.”