Buy something by De Bonne Facture and you’ll always know who made your clothes.

Fashion trends, although fickle and transient by nature, often affect what we wear whether we like it or not. That is not the case for Ms Déborah Neuberg, however. Since founding her brand De Bonne Facture in Paris in 2013, she has been overseeing a quiet clothing revolution. “Clothes are not about fashion for me,” she says over the phone from the Pitti Uomo trade show in Florence. “It’s about the making and the craftsmanship. That’s what’s important to me. I’ve always been fascinated by the connection between objects and crafts. That’s why I started the brand.”

After a stint as a product developer at Hermès, where she learned about “excellent, beautiful craftsmanship”, Ms Neuberg went to work for a large retail chain in China, and was saddened by what she saw. “It was so different from Hermès, ethically and quality-wise,” she says. “I really felt strongly about some of the things I saw there and the way products were made. I was very depressed about the whole process, and although I learned a lot about how the industry works, it didn’t feel right to me the way things were being done.” She quit and started out on her own. “I came back to France and started visiting makers and ateliers to find out about the manufacturers, and it went from there,” she says.

De Bonne Facture’s clothing is made to last, is beautifully crafted and rendered in high-quality fabrics. In that sense, it’s an easy sell. What sets it apart more than that, however, is that each item of clothing from the brand contains a label detailing exactly where the garment was made and who made it. “Making clothing is a whole process that involves a lot of people,” says Ms Neuberg. “De Bonne Facture is about highlighting that process and having some form of integrity in the way we deliver each garment to our final customer. We try to maintain a link between the brand that’s on the label, but also trace back to where’s it been made and in which factory.”

Sustainability and ethics are not necessarily a replacement for style, and although Ms Neuberg doesn’t care for fashion trends, these are still great-looking contemporary clothes that go well with each other and pretty much anything. Take the brand’s cotton-drill trousers. “They’re an essential fall piece that you can mix with anything,” says Ms Neuberg. “The fabric comes from an English mill. It’s a cotton drill that is quite sturdy. It will age nicely with time. There are real horn buttons, pattern-maker canvas-cotton linings and piping inside the trousers. They’re made by atelier Hervier Productions in Châtillon-sur-Indre in central France.” For a timeless item of clothing you can keep for ever, look to the shearling aviator jacket. “I love seeing people in the street wearing vintage ones, and I wanted to remake one within our philosophy,” says Ms Neuberg. “It’s made with high-quality shearling leather from northern Spain with nice details such as a Riri zip. It is made by the atelier Manufacture de Cuir du Réalmont in the southwest of France, in the Tarn region, which is historically connected to leatherwork.”

This attention to detail is extraordinary, but where does De Bonne Facture get its inspiration? “I really like natural fabrics, especially biblical fabrics,” says Ms Neuberg. “I’m Jewish, so sometimes I go to the synagogue to read the Torah and all the fabrics I use are ones that are mentioned in the Torah. It makes me feel so weird. The passages that mention linen and wool, I’m like, oh yeah. That’s what I use.” This also links back to the brand’s ethical ethos. “If you look at it in a spiritual way, these fabrics come from nature, from plants or leather and wool from animals,” says Ms Neuberg. “There’s something quite primal and natural about it, as opposed to polyester or polyamide, which come from petrol and other non-renewable energy sources. It’s quite radical to think about clothes in this way, but clothing is the second most polluting industry on the planet, and there are so many ethical and ecological impacts connected to the industry. It’s not about feeling guilty, but it’s about starting to be conscious, and trying to reflect and have awareness.”

De Bonne Facture is based in France, but that doesn’t mean its intended reach isn’t global. “My concept is not ‘made in France’,” says Ms Neuberg. “It’s more about which atelier it’s made in or what region. It doesn’t have to be France. I think there should be an industry standard of who made something and where. It all comes back to one question: who made your clothes?”