Solène Lender at Cécile Feilchenfeldt's studio - 2023

Winner of the 2023 Prix Savoir-faire en transmission, Solène Lender is doing her internship with Cécile Feilchenfeldt, textile designer and founder of Cecile Feilchenfeldt Knitwearstudio Paris, continuing a two-year association with the designer, after several internships and a freelance collaboration.

Graduating in fashion and textile design in 2021 and 2022, Solène was trained in knitting by her mother from an early age. This youthful passion evolved into a desire to emphasize the creative and conceptual aspect of each of her pieces.

For several years now, Solène has been experimenting with hand knitting using different materials (fishing line, rope, wool), and discovered the semi-automatic knitting machine during a workshop with Marine Peutat, and during two internships with Cécile Feilchenfeldt. "Even if you're working on a computer, you really have to learn how to handle the machine, it's very important to touch the material, it's really personal work".

She imagines and creates experimental knitted textile works, combining raw and atypical materials such as fishing line and rope to push back the limits of technique.

As a designer, Cécile places experimentation at the heart of her research and the transmission of know-how at the core of her activity. Using traditional knitting and weaving techniques, she likes to explore new fibers and new textiles in volume, mixing nylon, raffia and lycra with cotton, wool and cashmere, and exploring biomaterials.

For these two passionate designers, the Prize is a unique opportunity: for Cécile, by giving her the time she needs to train and pass on her know-how, as well as to practice it; and for Solène, by enabling her to build on and strengthen the skills she acquired during previous internships with Cécile.

"Thanks to Cécile, I've learned about the world of fashion, which is very obscure to me, and she wants to show me the other side of it. She wants to teach me all her skills so that they continue to evolve. That's why she needs to train the people she wants to work with herself in order to develop.

Solène Lender