Nick Fouquet
“I love the feeling of being in the elements – free of the busy world. That mediative state of just being in the ocean, it’s my haven.”
“Today the contemporary man is a heterosexual, metropolitan, living in a city, doing art, does take care of himself. He grooms, and he has luxury, high-end cosmetic products.”
“Meditation has changed my life I think. I’m just so happy I’ve gotten hip to that movement. And it’s becoming more and more of a movement. It’s almost like yoga whether it’s power yoga or Shami Yoga which isn’t so huge, but you can really see that people – especially around here – are not so much into the physical as much as the spiritual, mental aspects of doing meditation.”
“I adopted my own meditation which is through the action of actually just doing it, centring myself and taking fifteen, twenty minutes a day to just get myself centred and do some breathing exercises.”
“I use a Shiseido face wash, that I love. It’s for men and then I get this Japanese bean shampoo”.
On exercise:
“I go in the ocean a lot, I do work out every once in a while, a couple of times a week and go for little walks, runs and swims in the ocean. I just like to be outside in nature mostly. We’re so lucky to be in LA and be able to use the environment we have. Instead of being in indoor gyms, it’s such a beautiful place if you know where to go.”
“To me style is everything. It’s almost like … How to put it? It’s like an outward expression of an interior need of sorts. For me it’s an art in itself and it’s got to be honed personally. I think you’re either born with it or you’re not. We walk out everyday and whatever we wear is sort of like what we’re saying to people that we meet. I guess, I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say, to me it’s just about having fun. Not taking things so seriously but yeah I think style is everything”.
Nick wears hat, Nick Fouquet.
“There’s all these different places where you can let yourself go, get physically in shape and enjoy doing it. I just kind of take advantage of the outdoors as much as I can and get in the water”.
“I’m French so its weird to say but I like the natural scent of a woman, no perfume nothing…”
Nick wears hat, Nick Fouquet.
“It was a very different Venice when I came, it resembled a Lower East Side with skaters, surfers, graffiti and art, gangs and guns and to me it felt like home.”
“I went to school for environmental science and sustainable development. That’s what I graduated with but I’d always had this desire to create and I was a bit of a late bloomer creatively. My sisters were all artists, musicians, dancers and I grew up with five sisters. I always felt like I was missing out, and ah my dad was always travelling for work and bringing back all these clothes that I would always take from him, alter and change and that was a bit of my creative outlet. Then I worked for a designer out here who was a bit of a mentor and after gaining some experience, I just was like, “You know I’d really love to do my own thing.”
On meditation:
“My mind is in so many different places and I’m doing all these different things. It’s just a really amazing tool to be able to concentrate, focus and get centred.”
“I met this cowboy one day and he was wearing this beautiful hat. I was like, “You know what? Where did you get that?” He told me he’d made it.
I asked him some questions on how many people did it. He told me it was a super niche market and it was like a secret craft. I was like, “That’s what I want to do.” Before I knew it, something that became a passion was an obsession and then a business. That’s the long and short of it. I mean it was a complete accident… that’s the beauty of life”.
Nick wears hat, Nick Fouquet.
On hat making:
“When I really got into it, it was such a undervalued, under saturated market. When I got into the ins and outs of hat making, the quality and the craft behind it I realized it was so undervalued. Also as an item it’s, to me, the pinnacle of elegance you know? For men and for women. A lot of the hats on the market were very cheaply made and there was no soul to them. I wanted to be able to bring my touch, my creative ideas and shake things up a little. A classic hat has just been a classic hat for so long. I feel like I didn’t invent the hat, I didn’t reinvent the hat but I just was able to put my sauce on it”.
Nick wears hat, Nick Fouquet.
“I take a classic hat and put a contemporary twist on it. Whether it’s like the accoutrements that I add, the shapes that I put on them to a bunch of different facets. I think it’s just that each hat really has its own individual soul and personality for the person getting it. Everything is really made to measure in so many ways. If it’s a hat for Pharrell or Madonna or Gigi Hadid it’s the consideration of who the person that’s going to wear it. Everyone’s got such different style, different attitudes and that gets translated into the hat.
“People are getting more hip to not wearing such brand heavy apparel, but things that are more personal.”
Hat, Nick Fouquet.
“What makes a woman beautiful, is not wearing that much make up… to be more natural. I never understood how girls take 45 min to get ready is pisses me off, they’re beautiful as is, just a quick liner maybe and that’s it…. I don’t think I’m being too irrational.”
Nick wears hat, Nick Fouquet.
On how to get that awesome surfer hair texture:
“I’m always in the ocean. I wash my hair once every two weeks…I probably shouldn’t say that. I don’t think washing your hair everyday is really healthy. It needs those natural oils but I use the Bumble & Bumble sea salt spray because I just don’t like that sensation of really clean hair. It feels so fluffy, so I use that spray. It makes me feel like I’m back in the ocean”.
“I can’t find the Nuxe moisturiser in the US. I go to Paris a lot and I buy it there. I love the smell of it, it feels good and that’s my moisturizer. I use it morning and night”.
Pharrell. Jared Leto. Gigi Hadid. They’re a few of the most conspicuous heads on red carpets and magazines over the past few years, and Nick Fouquet has been on top of them all.
This is an exciting one for THE FILE because it’s the first time we’ve profiled a dude on the site. And he shares the same type of credentials as any of the women who’ve graced our pages: cool career, infectiously chill spirit and personal style for days.
He’s a hat maker, whose accidental gravitation into his craft has seen his lids adorn some of the most high profile style players in the world.
The only boy in a family of six siblings, Nick Fouquet was a late bloomer creatively. His sisters were artists, musicians and dancers, and after graduating university in environmental science and sustainable development, he eventually gave in and found himself joining them on the path of more creative pursuits.
For the past eight or so years Nick has lived in California’s Venice Beach, the pastel-washed hub of subculture and art on the fringe of Los Angeles with a near mythical pop cultural history. And, in what must be one of the most Californian stories we’ve ever heard, it was Nick’s encounter with a be-hatted cowboy that proved a cataclysmic creative moment for him.
“I met this cowboy one day and he was wearing this beautiful hat,” Nick explains. “I was like, ‘Where did you get that?’ He told me he’d made it. I asked him some questions on how many people [made hats like that] and he told me it was a super niche market and it was like a secret craft. I was like, “That’s what I want to do.” That’s the long and short of it. I mean, it was a complete accident – and I think that’s the beauty of life.”
Cut to 2015 and Nick’s handcrafted custom wares have appeared on both Pharrell and Madonna at the 2014 Grammys, and Anne Hathaway and Bob Dylan are among his clientele.
His designs share a distressed soulful aesthetic – a meld of classic brimmed silhouettes (fedoras, Boss of the Plans, stetson and trilby) with contemporary accoutrements and finishes. That worn soulfulness you can see in his creations is a conscious part of the process for Nick.
“To me style is everything. It’s almost like … How to put it? It’s like an outward expression of an interior need of sorts. For me it’s an art in itself and it’s got to be honed personally.”
Whatever he’s doing it’s working.
Until next time we’re in Venice Beach…
Words by Suz Tucker.
Photography by Adam Amengual.
