Making Paper from DARA
Meet Frédéric Gironde, papermaker at Papiers Ruscombe in Margaux, where paper is still made by hand, one sheet at a time, from linen, hemp and old textiles.
Wood was new territory for Frédéric Gironde. “Wood? I didn’t know how,” he admits. So when we handed him chips from DARA and complete freedom, he spent eighteen months working it out.
His secret is almost as old as the tree itself: antique linen and hemp sheets, some dating back to the French Revolution, made while DARA was already growing. Blended with DARA’s fibres, they create a paper that brings together two materials from the same centuries.
“These two materials were never meant to meet. In the end, we made them meet.”
The result is a range of papers, from an almost transparent 80gsm sheet to Peau de Chêne, the heaviest of all, made entirely from DARA’s pulp.
In the film
- Holding a letter signed by Louis XIV, and being asked to make paper to match it.
- Paper dyed with Margaux wine that changes colour in twenty seconds.
- Why failed sheets can become his most precious ones.
Well-kept textile paper can last for centuries. DARA’s story is only beginning.
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