With the same care she puts into her signature jewelry pieces, Mignon Faget has spent almost half a century crafting the multi million-dollar business that is Mignon Faget Ltd. A fifth-generation New Orleanian, Faget says her life, and her work, are a product of the city.
“My success is firmly planted in New Orleans,” Faget says. “This is where I was born and educated, and it’s the vibrant city that has always inspired and supported my work.”
Today Mignon Faget Ltd. has 70-plus employees. Formerly home to Hibernia Bank, the corporate office at Magazine and General Pershing streets was purchased in 1997 and encompasses 6,485 square feet.
Almost half of this space is allotted to workshops and production, where, 10 jewelers,clad in blue smocks, work at well-lit stations handling each assignment with great precision.
“My talented craftspeople are amazing,” she says. “Each one is a treasure in her or his own right. I feel it is an important part of my story for everybody to know that this is where it happens.”
Faget is so dedicated to being “made in New Orleans” that even when executives from a TV shopping channel approached Faget with the opportunity to mass-produce her jewelry in a foreign country for distribution on its station, she simply shook her head, saying, “No, we don’t mass-produce jewelry. Everything is created by talented artists right here in our New Orleans workroom.”
The only part of Mignon Faget’s production not done on-site is handled by Calbar, a casting company Faget owns in New Jersey.
The Mignon Faget corporate offices are a beehive of activity. As you step through the front door, a large conference room furnished with Arts and Crafts furniture lies just to the right. A honeycomb of offices is spread throughout the first and second floor, with an original Hibernia bank safe still in operation as a repository for valuables.
One special spot on the second floor is allotted to John Humphries, Faget’s son, who launched his own line of jewelry in 2009. His creations are available Faget’s galleries and on his own website – www.johnhumphries.com. Faget says she is pleased to have her son’s office next to hers.
“He is talented in his own right and has already developed a following of his own,” she says.
A Woman of Many Talents
Faget’s career began in 1969 with the launch of her first ready-to-wear collection, which featured clothing made of organic fabrics such as wool, cotton, linen, and silk. She adorned luxurious suede with nail heads, and a cover article about her clothing was featured in a 1969 issue of New Orleans Magazine.
It was a natural transition for her to quickly add a belt, pin or necklace to enhance her clothing. Designing and making jewelry quickly followed.
Over the years, the company has grown to include not only jewelry, but home designs including glassware, table linens, candles and desktop items as well. Faget also has a bridal department offering a bandeaux, wristlet, and belt for the bride, and a set of bridal cake pulls.
In all of Faget’s years in business – from the day she opened her first shop and workroom at 714 Dublin Street in the Riverbend area, to her spacious headquarters today – she has been a dedicated businesswoman.
“I still have fond memories of opening my first atelier-style operation,” she says. “I take great pride in the fact that many people who shopped at my Dublin Street store are still collectors of my jewelry today.”
“My work has been like a journal,” she says. “Whatever it is that I’m particularly interested in at any phase in my life comes out in my work.”
It would take a dozen single-space pages to list all of the collections Faget has launched in her career. Her latest – LUZ/OBSCURO – is now selling in the company’s five retail outlets. Mignon Faget’s lastest 50-page catalog has been mailed to every state in the country.
“Once again I find it exciting to be offering a new collection of 38 pieces of jewelry, all mainly made right here in New Orleans in my workshop on Magazine Street,” she says, adding that her website has had a banner holiday season.
“It is always my latest collection that excites me the most, and I especially like my just-released LUZ/OBSCURO because it expresses the idea that beauty is all around us, in life’s contrasts and diversities,” she says. “It is named ‘Light and Dark’ and inspired by New Orleans, a city where the spirit of living dissolves boundaries and encourages originality.”
Faget is proud that her jewelry designs have been derived from natural and architectural forms found in her native New Orleans environment.
“This is a mysterious place, and what is so beautiful about New Orleans and Louisiana comes out in my work,” she says. From the beginning, Faget has worked closely with natural forms, never simply duplicating but always extracting the substance, the essence or a particular shape. “I keep refining until I am satisfied with the outcome,” she says.
Shaped by the Past
“My parents were great influences in my life,” she explains. “My mother encouraged my creativity and indulged my desire to always be slightly different by willingly executing the clothes I would imagine in my head.”
Mignon Josephine Cressy Faget lived to be 104 and enjoyed watching her daughter become a nationally known jewelry designer.
“My mother’s encouragement definitely shaped my path of creativity,” she continues. “By the time I was ending my senior year at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, I was confident enough to design the dresses worn by my entire graduating class.”
She fondly remembers her father Edouard Beeg Francois Faget as a tall, handsome doctor who would allow her to ride with him as he made house calls.
“He was an inspiration to me by his genuine caring for his patients,” she says. “He was from a family of five generations of accomplished doctors and very dedicated to his profession.”
Faget earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a major in metal work from Newcomb College of Tulane University. Following graduation, she studied for a year at the Academie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, and later attended Parsons School of Design in New York. Well after her career was launched, Faget returned to Tulane University to take postgraduate classes in botany and other areas.
Faget’s childhood influences can be seen in the many philanthropic endeavors she has undertaken throughout her career, including multiple donations to the New Orleans Preservation Resource Center (PRC), as well as the proceeds from a rebirth pin that she created post-Katrina for the Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation. Pieces created to benefit the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana after the BP oil spill are still generating income for that cause.
From September 2010 to January 2011, The retrospective exhibit on Mignon's work, "Mignon Faget: A Life in Art and Design," was held at the Historic New Orleans Collection exhibit. It then traveled to the Louisiana State Museum, Capitol Park, Baton Rouge from November 2011 to February 2012.
Some of her many awards are neatly displayed on tall shelves in the conference room of her headquarters. Her accolades are too numerous to list.
With all of this success behind her, what does the future hold for Faget?
“I am always anxious to begin working on a new collection,” she says. “In the past I have created collections that explore nature, architecture, textiles, and New Orleans traditions, as well as my now-thriving textiles and home accessories. I’m not sure what the future will bring. I am just sure it will be interesting.”
Mignon Faget Galleries
New Orleans
3801 Magazine Street
Canal Place
METAIRIE
Lakeside Shopping Center
Baton Rouge
7350 Jefferson Highway
Lafayette
1921 Kaliste Saloom Road, Ste. 124
A vault from Hibernia Bank (the former tenants of Mignon Faget’s offices) remains in use today as a repository for Mignon valuables.
The spacious conference room features classic arts and craft furniture.
The Mignon Faget Ltd. flag flies outside the window of the company’s conference room.
Jewelers in blue smocks work at well-lit stations crafting Mignon creations onsite.
Purchased in 1997, the headquarters of Mignon Faget measures 6,485 square feet, with almost 3,000 feet allotted to the workshop and production area.
