Originally from Saint-Rémy, Charlène Bert lives her job with passion in Toulouse
Always passionate about jewelry and specializing in hand engraving, Charlène Bert took over, at the age of 25, a historic brand on rue de la Colombette in Toulouse. A business that she makes prosper and a know-how that she wishes to pass on so that her profession does not disappear.
Very early on, Charlène Bert knew that she wanted to work in jewelry and that she had to leave Saint-Rémy, her native village, in Villefranchois.
Born in 1993 in Rodez, she was educated in Villeneuve-d’Aveyron, then at the Francis-Carco college in Villefranche-de-Rouergue and finally at the Raymond-Savignac high school in the same city.
“At 12-13 years old, I was already interested in jewelry. But my parents still pushed me to do a general second. A year of high school that I found terribly long”, recalls the young woman.
“My mother was crying on the quay”
At the age of 16, she then decided to leave her village to go and take courses at the Saumur jewelery school (IBS) in Maine-et-Loire, more than 400 km from her home, and prepare a CAP in alternation for two years.
A need to open up to the world and a chosen and assumed distance: “I took the train alone from Cahors for a nine-hour trip, she remembers. My mother was crying on the platform. That’s what forged my I was really capable!”
She then spent a week a month in Saumur, staying in a hostel, and three weeks as an apprentice with Emmanuel Bouquié, a jeweler on rue de la République in Villefranche-de-Rouergue. And print her CAP Art and technique of jewelery jewelery in 2011 before continuing with an additional mention obtained the following year when she is, this time, an apprentice with Mr. Truel in Decazeville.
Three degrees in four years
With this same craftsman, now retired, in 2013 she obtained a new CAP Art and technique of jewelry, setting option. Three degrees in 4 years! But the young Aveyronnaise is still thirsty to learn and has an encounter that will mark her life and determine the rest of her career.
“That year, I wanted to specialize in engraving with Mr. Gaillard, in Toulouse, alternating with courses at the vocational high school for crafts (SEPR) in Lyon.” And it’s a new CAP – Engraving profession, ornamental engraving option – won in 2015 at the prestigious Boulle school in Paris. “There were nine of us on the exam and only five graduated throughout France,” she recalls.
A decisive meeting
She was hired by following Pierre Gaillard, an engraver who had a storefront in the Saint-Aubin district. She succeeded him in 2018 – she was only 25 – when the latter retired in June 2018. “A real nice meeting!”, insists Charlène Bert. She also keeps the name of the shop: “It doesn’t bother me at all that there is always Gaillard on the window. Besides, it happens that customers call me Madame Gaillard. It makes me laugh! “
Charlène Bert flourishes in Toulouse: “My life is here!”, She says.
“For me he is like a second dad who passes on his know-how to his daughter, she underlines. Even if he sold me his business, he is always present and benevolent. He even stayed for a year to passion.”
However, the story was not written. “The apprentices, I don’t want them, it’s going badly”, said Mr. Gaillard then when the young Charlène presented herself to him. “Dad, think about it, you’re 60, try one last time,” insisted his daughter Justine, who worked with him.
Transmit his passion
“I think that without Justine, I wouldn’t be here,” admits the young Aveyronnaise.
“With Mr. Gaillard, on a real complicity even if I always see him as you. Besides, I still call him boss”, she smiles.
Today, at almost 30 years old, Charlène Bert says she is “very proud of her career” She now plans to renovate the shop in this rue de la Colombette which she appreciates – “the district is great” -, to revamp the site internet and above all to continue to transmit to his apprentices and to make hand engraving known “because it is a profession that is disappearing, replaced by laser engraving… I am perhaps one of the last in Toulouse to hand-engraving on the jewelry,” she insists. And its customers, some of whom come from Bordeaux, Montpellier or even further afield, are not mistaken.
And as the young Aveyronnaise is always thirsty to learn and deepen her art, she has the project to enter the competition for the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) in order to acquire a national or even international reputation and thus reach a larger clientele. big. “A real challenge!”, she enthuses.
