Forget the age-old polarity between commerce and creativity. For Ahlem Manai-Platt, founder of the eponymous luxury eyewear brand AHLEM, “there’s no distinction”—it’s all about trusting your intuition, be that when hiring, designing or making business decisions. Manai-Platt is confidence incarnate—as she says herself, “I never questioned whether I’d succeed. When you’re at the core of what you’re proposing, how can it fail?” It’s this curiosity and confidence that’s taken AHLEM from strength to strength since she launched it in 2014. When we speak, Manai-Platt is enjoying a morning coffee in the LA sun, after dropping her son off at school. It’s curiously domestic compared to her usual routine of regular transatlantic flights to Paris and back. She makes the most of those trips: “Flights give me the possibility to draw. It’s an in-between time, like a theater interval.”

BELLA GLADMAN: Did you always want to work in fashion?

AHLEM MANAI-PLATT: Actually, I studied history and photography, to be a war reporter, having been interested in geopolitics since I was a child. I got a job on the photo desk of a documentary production company in Paris, digitizing journalists’ films. I was consuming raw documentaries day and night, until I got the chance to do it myself. Although, when my time came, it wasn’t a war I was reporting on: I was on camera for a documentary about the difficult life of being an artist in France. I ended up working at Acne, then at Prada Group, then I started my own company helping designers. After less than a year, I decided to start my own brand. Everybody wants to start a brand—a T-shirt brand, pants line, whatever! It was eyewear for me.

BG: Why eyewear?

AMP: I don’t need to wear glasses, but I’ve always had my sunglasses with me. If they aren’t on my eyes, they’re hanging on a headphone cord or hooked on my T-shirt. I’m an only child, and I grew up between Paris and Tunisia. My mother was extremely busy, and every holiday she would send me to Tunisia to stay with her older sister. I would always go with a new watch, a new camera and a new pair of sunglasses: Those were my essentials.

BG: Talk me through your design principles.

AMP: I liked the Bauhaus ethos before I could even name it or knew what it was. When I was three or four, I was so fascinated by object design. Marbles, fountain pens—the proportion, the line, simplicity, functionality. When I discovered the Bauhaus, its principles of form following functionality, and how that can be applied to a cup, a building, a shirt or a bed, I realized it really was an emotion I had already been feeling.

BG: What’s Ahlem’s je ne sais quoi?

AMP: My design process begins with intuition. I approach each frame as a sculpture, improvising and refining until my idea comes to life. AHLEM glasses are made to make you look good—to give you that instant feeling of confidence and cool—and they’re the best quality they can possibly be. Recently, I was in New York at our flagship store, and my friend came by. He tried a pair on and just said, “Whoa, that’s insane.” You can feel it when you wear them. I’m a true advocate of artisanal craftsmanship. We place such importance on the love, care and savoir-faire put into our glasses because it’s the little details that take them to heirloom status and elevate the wearer’s mood and experience.

BG: How are you planning to last?

AMP: I don’t look to recreate the past for design inspiration, it’s about designing for a contemporary moment. I always tell people that I don’t have “inspirations”—and it’s true that I avoid mood boards, nostalgia trips, and devotion to any specific icon. My influences are democratic: they’re everywhere. For me, inspiration is diffuse rather than anchored. It’s always moving. Every single design choice I make is about longevity. My belief is that simple, elegant silhouettes paired with superior materials will produce objects that can last a lifetime.

BG: What’s running your own brand like?

AMP: My leadership style is intuitive—I run AHLEM the way I want it to be run. I saw what was wrong with the corporate world—the inefficiency, the coming in at 8 and finishing late. I don’t need anybody to text or email me at 9 p.m., it’s unnecessary! I’ve also learned that you need to take on the best idea, wherever it comes from, whoever says it. I’m learning on the fly, from experts in their fields, and realistically, if tomorrow I can’t work for six months, I want to have created a brand that can carry on without me. You can only do that by hiring people you trust, and who trust in you. 

Produced in partnership with AHLEM.