Meet Aurore Donguy, the celebrity stylist who sublimates time

February 2025

Hello Aurore, it's a pleasure to meet you. Could you tell us about your beginnings in fashion?

Hello! My passion for fashion began in middle school, a period of rebellion when I expressed my personality by transforming my mother's clothes.

She quickly noticed my talent and encouraged me to take up dressmaking. I did a preparatory course in applied arts, then studied in Lille. One day my mother gave me the contact details of Jean-Louis Scherrer, to whom I wrote a handwritten letter. He replied a week later, and his letter was a real gateway to the fashion world. I joined the Chambre Syndicale des Métiers de la Mode in Paris, where I worked flat out for three years. But I finished top of my class!

Then I had the opportunity to work for Hermès and at the Academy of Arts in San Francisco. When I got back from the States, I started out on my own, then went into partnership with another designer, Etienne Jeanson. After we split up, I met Pascal Obispo in 2012 and started working for him on his musical. That's how I developed my show-business activity.

What are your main sources of inspiration? How do you manage to create unique, personalized looks for each celebrity you dress?

I'm inspired by everything around me. I can be inspired by the glamorous side of things, but also by more authentic things. My inspiration also comes from the personalities of the people around me or with whom I work.

What's your approach to building a relationship of trust with the celebrities you dress? How do you work together to create looks that make them stand out?

It's a very delicate thing, because you have to get close to people to understand who they are and their personality. This guides or will guide what they wear. We have to find the style that matches their real personality, not their fantasized image. They have to open up their heart and their intimacy to me so that I can feel them. I like to develop real friendships with celebrities.

How do you relate watchmaking to clothing style? In your opinion, how can a watch complete a look and fully express the wearer's personality?

Accessories can enhance personality, but the reverse is also true. Ideally, the two should somehow neutralize each other to strike a beautiful balance. A watch necessarily reflects a personality or a current state of mind, just like a piece of clothing. I like to use accessories to play with looks.

What do you think are the most interesting watch trends of the moment? How do you see them evolving?

These days, jewelry and watches are important elements of a look. They reveal your personality. It's not uncommon to see people wearing non-branded clothes, but with a beautiful watch or piece of jewelry. But I think the trend is towards jewelry and watches with a strong identity.

What do you like about Maison Tellus? What does this Maison evoke for you?

I met Maison Tellus at the Monaco Festival, where I had some wonderful encounters. Beyond the brand and its century-old history, Maison Tellus is above all the passionate personalities who embody it and give it great energy: Nuno and Claire de Ayala. We need people who create emotions, because after all, that's what life is all about.

Thanks to them, Maison Tellus is reborn and revitalized with beautiful, original and glamorous pieces.

Which Maison Tellus model do you wear and why this model? What emotions does it arouse in you (or in others)?

I really like the Discoverer 604 model, with its black diamond-set brackets and metal bracelet. But I fell in love at first sight with the Diamanta 209, with its dial entirely paved with black diamonds and its stingray strap, which is my particular weakness. In fact, it's the one I'm wearing today!

There's not an event or evening where I'm not complimented or asked what I'm wearing.