La Soufflerie

La Soufflerie began as a nonprofit glassblowing association that Sébastien and Valentina Nobile founded in Paris in 2007, after concluding that mouth-blown glassmaking was dying out in the city. Sébastien was one of the few working glassblowers left in Paris; Valentina, then a painter and photographer, had approached him about renting studio space, and the two later spent their honeymoon traveling by camper to ancient glassblowing sites in Jordan and Syria. On their return, in 2009, they made four vases from recycled glass and sold them by bicycle to Paris florists — the sale that effectively launched the business. That same year, both of the glassblowing teachers Sébastien had studied under died, and the region's only glassblowing class closed, leaving La Soufflerie among the last active links to the craft in Paris. The company still uses recycled glass sourced from wine and beer bottles, perfume bottles, and window panes, melted by hand in a furnace and shaped by mouth rather than machine, so each finished piece — vases, tableware, glasses — carries visible pontil marks and slight variation as a mark of handwork. It runs a boutique in the Latin Quarter at 7 rue de l'Odéon and reinvests proceeds into supporting glassblowers.