Our Story
Hi, I’m Marie
A French-Australian designer based in Melbourne since 2014.
Before Atelier Cayelle, I studied applied art and design for seven years in France and Belgium, then spent 18 years working as a creative across France, Switzerland, Canada and Australia. In 2015, after years of creating for others, I felt the need to make something more tangible, something I could shape with my own hands.
Back to school
At age 30, I went back to university and studied Furniture Design at RMIT in Melbourne.
That shift led me into workshops, materials, prototypes and exhibitions. My furniture work was shown at Front Centre during DENFAIR Melbourne, at Melbourne Design Week with the NGV, and shortlisted twice at Vivid Melbourne. I later launched the Nara range handmade by family-owned businesses in Victoria.
But one material exploration changed everything…
How I created my first coffee-stone composite
In 2015, early in my studies, I was asked to turn a waste into a want. This is how I first experimented with used coffee grounds. A coffee table made from coffee? What started as a funny idea turned into a material that stayed with me.
Dark, textured, lightweight and full of tiny variations, it had a depth I couldn’t ignore. After years of testing, refining and failing, I began transforming coffee grounds into smaller sculptural forms. Pieces that could be worn.
In 2017, Atelier Cayelle Jewellery was born
Since, each piece is handmade in small batches in Melbourne, using recycled coffee grounds, real gold powder, and carefully selected 18K gold-plated and surgical steel nickel-free findings.
The scale has changed but the idea remains the same: turning an everyday material into a design object with an unexpected story.