KOLROY : OFR is an institution that’s been around since 1996, you’ve had Raf Simons, Virgil Abloh, Sofia Coppola, Loïc Prigent, and the list goes on… You’re killing it in Korea, Japan, so it’s really global now. I’m walking down the street, I see OFR caps, it’s no joke. Now that we’ve set the scene, I’d love to hear more about your story, can you tell us about the journey before this huge success that is OFR ?

Alex : I talk about it a bit in a book we just released called Open Free and Ready. It’s a book I wrote on Jeju Island, in the south of South Korea. I’m originally from the Parisian suburbs, first from Clichy-sous-Bois in the 93, and then my parents moved to a small town in the Yvelines called Bailly. We still had that 93 reference, you know, the poverty, and I think I immediately had the instinct to invent businesses and make money.

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Very young, at just 12 years old, I picked up on an idea. There were scouts who had gone door-to-door asking my parents to sell croissants to fund a trip, but they never came back. So I thought to myself, "Hey, their idea was actually pretty good."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alex : One of the guys who ran my football club was also the baker in the neighboring village. In my town, there was no bakery, but in the next village over, there was a baker I knew through football. So, I asked him, "Hey, if I buy a hundred croissants from you, can you give me a special price ?"

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I started going around to see my neighbors. Back then, we didn’t have intercoms, so I’d knock on their doors directly. At first, I messed up a lot, but eventually, I started finding regular customers. Every Saturday, I’d visit them to ask what they wanted for the next day, then deliver it the following morning before they woke up so they wouldn’t have to go out.

So that was my first experience, from 12 to 16. I've always had endurance, probably thanks to sports. I played football and tennis, so there was always that physical aspect. For me, getting up early and taking setbacks wasn’t that difficult. I think there's definitely a bit of a sports mentality in all of this.

There was the appeal of being independent, the appeal of freedom. At a young age, like 14, you could buy your own moped, your own records, your books, your bus and train tickets to go to Paris...It was awesome. Long live money, because it brought that freedom !

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Alex : Around 16, it was pretty easy for me, just like organizing parties with the music I loved, the DJs I liked, and finding people to handle the entrance, the cloakroom, and so on. Same thing, we took a lot of hits, sometimes parties where no one came, or we'd get everything stolen by local crews that showed up. But little by little, things started to come together pretty well.

So when I moved to Paris while studying, I started organizing bigger parties in parallel. Cave le Chapelet was a venue where we could easily fit 400-500 people for a night. We charged for entry, the bar... and I was lucky enough to have Daft Punk play twice, for example, right at the beginning of their career, back in 1992.

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KOLROY : Did you know them ? 

Alex : I knew them really well, they were childhood friends. I was also good friends with Phoenix, who lived in Parly 2, a housing complex near Versailles, in a town called Le Chesnay. We had mutual friends from high school and hung out together. One of the guys from Phoenix, Branco, actually started Daft Punk with them. He didn’t stick with it, though, he wasn’t part of the group in the end, but that’s okay. Later, he went to check out his little brother, who was starting a music project in Versailles, and as for me, I started making films.

 

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​With the money I made from the parties I organized, I was able to reinvest it in things I loved, like making films. It was really expensive, buying film stock, developing it... So, I found free actors, technicians, and I was back in the 93, studying at Paris 8 University in Saint-Denis. There, we were learning about cinema, and most importantly, there were a lot of people available to help with film production.

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KOLROY : What year are we talking about here, just to get a sense of the timeline ?

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Alex : It’s up until the end of 1994, early 1995. The last Daft Punk live I organize is in 1995. We did it twice, once as part of a school party I organized called L'ENSAE, a statistics school with a huge budget for their end-of-year party. I got my hands on that budget and booked them, along with a bunch of other people. That was at "Le Tapis Rouge", right across from the 10th arrondissement town hall, a massive space spread across 3-4 levels. Inside, we organized a fashion show, there were 3 or 4 live bands, and Daft Punk played. I ended up booking them again the week after at "Cave le Chapelet".

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​That’s how I financed the films. I made three of them, shooting in Super 16, which I later blew up to 35mm. One was about 15 minutes long, another around 30 minutes, and the third was about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

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KOLROY : Where did you show them ?

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Alex : At festivals, it was quite difficult to get the films shown. There were some, let’s say, private screenings, as well as festival screenings. I also presented them to people from TV, including the director of France 3 at the time, who liked them, but the format didn’t at all fit what France 3 could broadcast.

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KOLROY : Do you still have those films ?

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Alex : They’re still on reels in my stock, I haven’t digitized them. It’s something I put aside. It’s true that it’s tempting to convert them to digital, though, and of course, there would be a lot of loss in quality. I now have three kids who are old enough to watch them with me, so I could organize a screening.

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KOLROY : What kind of films are they ? *asked with a sarcastic tone* 

*LAUGHS* 

Alex : No, because when you're a kid, you don't really care

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KOLROY : Oh okay 

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Alex : No, no, it’s not pornography !

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KOLROY : Can you explain how you ended up deciding to open a bookstore ? How did you manage to become so big and stay relevant over time ? Do you remember the opening well ?

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Alex : Of course, very well. There was never a clear project, never a business plan, and it's still the same when we make books or films. We start with the heart, with desire, and then we surprise ourselves with what that initial spark turns into. And that’s also what drives all these businesses : we have no idea what’s going to happen.

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​I realize that making films is a heavy task, even though I manage to self-finance them and stay independent. There’s still a weight that comes with the number of people involved. It’s a world with a lot of narcissism and people who want to speak up; you have to listen. Maybe I don’t have enough psychology to really thrive in that world.

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And I saw a magazine during a trip to Marseille, a cultural weekly magazine that was very well done, beautiful, smart, and well-written, called Tactic. It told you what to do in the city that week, and I thought, wow, this absolutely needs to be done in Paris, it doesn’t exist here. So, we started making a weekly magazine. I say "we" because, in almost every project, I include my sister Marie and 2-3 friends who are always around. They’re not always the same people, but there’s always someone nearby with some knowledge or a desire to participate in something. That’s how we started forming a small group that could write, take photos, draw, and just go for it. We first made this magazine called Prétexte, a weekly. From a personal point of view, it allowed me to less intellectualize what I was going to do.

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What I mean is, when you make a film, you don’t know if you’re going to make two or three more. It’s such a heavy process that you feel like you have to be as precise, powerful, and intelligent as possible. But with a weekly, it’s not as big of a deal because the next week, you might have something else to say.

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Also, a film takes a long time to produce, it takes 2-3 years, 4 years. Especially at the ages of 18, 19, 20, your mind evolves much faster than 4 or 5 years. So, a weekly magazine was much more in sync with what I wanted to communicate, tell, and express.

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KOLROY : Evolving at the same pace as the weekly.

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Alex : Exactly. So my projects have always been poetic projects. When I organize parties, it's also about sharing the music I love, bringing people together, dancing with a specific decor, flyers, and graphics... It’s never been cynical projects.

 

I was a monitor in high schools until around 1995, I think, after high school, so it lasted 4 or 5 years. I had a salary that allowed me to rent a crappy little room and still have some time to work on the projects I loved, even if they were almost a loss financially.

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Alex : But then, one day, I found myself with this magazine that I distributed myself, for the same reason : independence. To create something completely autonomous. I thought distribution should also be controlled by us. We ran out of money to print the 6th issue, we made 5, maybe 6, but we didn't have enough funds for the 6th one. And then, by chance, I found myself with a distribution network. I thought, maybe I could sell or rent this network to people who would need it.

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So we started working with people from the film industry, from culture, who needed to distribute their catalog, or foreign newspapers that didn’t have distribution in France. Magazines from all over the world, and we ended up distributing more than 300 magazines in Paris, which didn’t have distributors at the time, including English, American, Japanese, German magazines...

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KOLROY : When you say you had a distribution network, was it just what you had built thanks to the weekly ?

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Alex : Actually, it's a logistical know-how, it's 2-3 tools, a knowledge of the city, which means you know that you can sell a certain book in a certain place, a certain magazine in another place... You know how to invoice, you have a company, you know this business.

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It’s always within culture and art. One day we have a stock of all these magazines, and this stock is behind a window on the ground floor. And people walking by… this is on Rue Beaurepaire, I think it's 1998, maybe 1999. And people start knocking on the door and asking,

'Hey, can we buy all these magazines we see here directly ?'

 

And that's when you become a bookseller, because you say yes, you leave your door open, people come in, at a time when there was no Instagram... it means you have to promote things, and it's a lot heavier and more difficult.

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But we organize parties, we sort our stock, we hold exhibitions, we organize launches, the beer flows freely, we make what are called flyers, we distribute these flyers, because we’re in the car all day driving around Paris, handing out things, so it’s easy for us to send flyers left and right. And most importantly, we tell all these people who are kind of influencers, those who own shops, cafés, 'Come on this day, there's a party, a launch, a gathering…'

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It’s the big moment for electronic music, there’s a time when we get in touch with a great place called the Whatsbar on Rue Daval in the 11th district, and with this guy named Hervé Duflot, we’re going to organize a weekly event where we’ll launch one of these magazines, and we’ll bring in, invite Americans, Italians, Brits, Austrians... and French people as well, of course, and we’ll pair it with DJs. So there will be DJs, an open bar, and it was Foster’s beer that would give us hundreds of free beers.

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The club was a good fit because it was more of a night bar, with a crowd that started arriving around 11 PM to midnight. He let us warm up his space with these cultural events, and he was also someone with a strong cultural sensibility who was very proud of it.

 

Then it was a great clientele, probably the kind that was bound to come back to his bar. And it’s also through this that we were able to promote this new wave of magazines that no one knew, which were ultra-niche magazines, very poorly distributed or not distributed at all, and that people didn’t know. If your magazine isn’t known, you can’t get advertising, for example.

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KOLROY : Do you have any names that come to mind or not ?

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Alex : Well, it's the Parisian magazines that are still alive today, like Purple, Selfservice, there was an art magazine called Zine magazine, but also The Face, which still exists, I-D, which still exists, Dazed and Confused, now just called Dazed, things like Sleez Nation, which no longer exists, and Wallpaper, for example, which became a huge magazine but started as a small magazine that maybe sold 50 copies in France, and so we started distributing it, showing it around.

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It allowed them to make more sales, but also to find advertising for their pages. The whole magazine scene was able to become profitable and exist economically through ads and increased sales... So it was good for everyone because all these magazines employed and continue to employ amazing stylists, writers, journalists, photographers... graphic designers. So that entire industry grew like that... so this was around 1998, let’s say it really exploded in 1997, maybe.

KOLROY : So this place we’re in right now, Ofr Paris on Rue du Petit Thouars, didn’t exist at that time ?

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Alex : No, no, but we had a corner in a shop that had just opened at the time, called Killiwatch, which still exists but has changed. Back then, it was in Étienne Marcel, the super fashion district, there was still Comme des Garçons with its store there, Issey Miyake was still around, there were cutting-edge things, and of course Kenzo. It was the golden era of Les Halles and Étienne Marcel, with the entire fashion industry surrounding it. And this fashion industry needed the information coming from England, the US… So we had Regen Magazine, for example, which was an incredible magazine, and the entire industry in Le Sentier, everyone in communication, fashion, events, or advertising needed that kind of information, trends, insights to predict what they would need to design, invent.

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And the same goes for music, because all these magazines like Dazed or I-D, they talked about music 6 months before it was even broadcast in France and reviewed in French media. So there was this kind of avant-garde that was really interesting, but then it all exploded, and everything radically changed at the beginning of the 2000s with the arrival of the internet.

 

Suddendly people said, 'But all this paper is over, because we can get this information on the internet, and it’s free.' And even the shops, now it's over, because we buy online. So there was this huge excitement at the beginning of the 2000s, and I really didn’t like it at all. I thought, 'This is not my life'.

 

My life isn’t going to be about sending things by mail, it’s not going to be about sitting in front of a computer. My life is about being in the city, participating once again, gathering all the talent for my personal pleasure and for the enjoyment and well-being of the public. People need to see each other, so we stayed very physical.

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KOLROY : By the way, today there’s still no computer.

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Alex : There’s still no computer, we stayed open, we kept opening shops, publishing things in the form of fanzines, books, precious or not. But in any case, we kept taking part in the artistic conversation of our time.

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KOLROY : At that time with the internet, did all these magazines, like Dazed, drop you, or did it continue ? 

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Alex : Not at all, they kept going, and we continued distributing them. They had the intelligence to make themselves more and more luxurious, meaning that suddenly, the object itself became important. They understood that the magazine game was also about being an object, so they made efforts in terms of production, design, and scoops...

 

The content remained amazing, and we saw people slowly coming back to paper, getting tired of their computers, and thinking, 'I’m not going to spend my life in front of a screen. I’m going to go to the shops, buy the magazines because they’re beautiful, because they also inform me in a different way.' The way they’re made, put together, is also a more subtle way to receive information than on my screen, no matter how big it is.

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We didn’t stop for personal reasons, but most of the magazines didn’t stop either. They transformed, evolved really well, and the places also became more and more exciting. We kept the taste for going into the city and visiting these places. If the place wasn’t pleasant, there would be no reason to go there.

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Alex : Paris is a big city with lots of streets that aren’t expensive.

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KOLROY : Back then 

 

Alex : No, no, even today, you can still find second-tier, somewhat shabby streets where you can set up your shop. It’s something we did here, for example, in 2007.

 

In 2007, we moved, came here. The place was much bigger, and once again, the place was completely rundown, next to the Carreau du Temple, which was abandoned, and next to a leather industry that had completely declined. So the entire ground floor was in bankruptcy, and there was a Monoprix next door, dumping its trash because there was no one around to keep order, receiving its pallets and leaving them on the sidewalk... it was really a complete mess.

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We took this place for almost nothing, started cleaning it up, and asked Monoprix to respect the law. Neither the police nor the city hall helped us in that sense, some kind of big corruption, letting the big players do whatever they want.

 

And we fought against them, sometimes even physically, and we organized hundreds and hundreds of events per year in this place. Every day, we received magazines but also books, more and more books, more and more exhibitions, so originals, posters, screenprints. We worked with ceramists and started selling ceramics, which we love. We kept doing concerts, organizing parties, handing out beer and wine to everyone, doing launches, really about a hundred a year. This year, we’ve done 120.

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Alex : So this pace never stopped, and we kept opening shops abroad and all over France. Whether as pop-ups or stores that we would close after 3 months, 6 months, 2 years, 10 years, for various reasons. In the end, it’s more than 200 openings, almost as many closures.

 

Today, we’ve had a great shop in South Korea for 6 years, and we just opened one in Tokyo last November, a few months ago. We’re opening a second shop in Paris next month, so it’s something we continue to do either reselling commercial spaces if we have the opportunity, or moving to a new model, a different size, or a street that feels more in tune with our current desires.

 

So we juggle with spaces just as we juggle with publications. Again, more than 200 publications like we mentioned with the Open Free Ready book, but we just released a book about restaurants in Paris, we publish artists’ catalogs, and sometimes we release small postcard books that can turn into huge successes.

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We're now at the 4th edition of a book by Celia Marie, which initially started as a very modest project a postcard book printed in 100 copies. Now we must have sold over 2,000 copies, with a whole collection behind it... So it’s interesting because you try, you try, then it catches on, and you support that success, knowing that it’s not guaranteed to last. And you're also really happy when there’s this kind of miracle that keeps it going, and for you, it’s both personally fulfilling and economically viable.

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Alex : And once again, it’s never because there’s money to be made that we chose this or that direction. I think that’s part of why our spaces, our publications have been successful for so long.

 

As you said, what’s important is also the duration, because there are a lot of people we’ve seen over 30 years of existence. Many people have disappeared, changed careers, who at the beginning were colleagues or competitors. I never saw them as competitors, but anyway, they stopped for one reason or another.

 

It’s true that if we’re still around, it’s not a given. There’s no family money, no sponsors, no investors like you might find in fashion, where suddenly brands are flooded with outside money, and after 5 or 6 seasons, the investor pulls out.

For us, it’s very healthy, we own our spaces, we own our brand, and there’s no outside investor.

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KOLROY : Ofr is still a bookstore that I consider very 'fashion-forward.' We have a lot of fashion magazines. Do you have any anecdotes to share with us, any iconic moments ? I know there was Virgil...

 

Alex : So, right now, you hear Björk. Antoine is playing it. Björk was here less than a year ago, she came as a customer. There was an exhibition in the gallery, she went to see it, and she loved it. I introduced myself, told her I had been a fan of hers for a long time, and those are the kind of amazing moments.

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But we've also had Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, Tyler the Creator who comes quite regularly, and of course, Virgil Abloh, who came a lot, both as a customer and to leave the books he had made.

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KOLROY : You also did something with Raf Simons, right ?

 

Alex : We did a book signing with Raf Simons and Another Magazine, yeah. We also worked with Paolo Roversi. Again, this year we’ve done over 120 events, covering fashion, photography, fashion or documentary photography, and art photography.

 

We’re also really into design and architecture, lots of architects and designers come here. Of course, we have tons of books on graphic design, typography, logos, and graphic identity. All of this is an extension of the magazines, but the core is still the magazine. But we also have a lot of books on plants, gardens, and a few cookbooks.

 

But we can’t dive into mangas, there’s too much of that. We can’t dive into French literature, there’s too much of that too. We can’t go into children’s books, again, too much. So, we stay within our 100m² and fill it with as much as we can, but with coherence, so people don’t get too lost.

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KOLROY : But how do you choose ? Sometimes you must contact people, other times they come to you, how does it work ? 

 

Alex : We have hundreds of suppliers. Having opened stores worldwide, for 10 years we had shops in London, New York, Los Angeles... Every time we opened, we set up accounts with local suppliers and distributors, so we have this entire global network, from Japan to all over Europe, that continues to follow us even though we’re no longer in their countries.

 

Then we also have artists who come directly to us, and we hunt for books at flea markets, special sales... Almost every day I buy books. I walk around Paris in any direction, and I find fellow booksellers who have books that interest me, books I don’t have anymore or that I’m missing, and I’ll resell them later in my bookstore.

 

So it’s quite fascinating. Even when I go to the farthest corners of Morocco, I think to myself, 'I’ll be at peace,' but no, there are still books that pique my interest. I once found some really beautiful books on carpets, which I brought back here, and they ended up filling our textile and design shelves.

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Of course, cities like London, New York, Tokyo, you come back with suitcases full of rare books. Then there’s the signed books… That’s almost a whole different thing. In any case, we prefer to organize book signings here.

 

Last year, we had Sofia Coppola, which was incredible, but it continues. We keep ordering her books from her publisher, and we’ve sold several thousand copies. She’s releasing more books this year, co-published with her publisher. Before, she was just the author of her book, but now she’s co-publishing under a name called Important Flowers, and maybe for that occasion, we’ll have her back for another signing to create some excitement.

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Alex : But we also had Paolo Roversi, which was huge to have him here. Having Sarah Moon was massive. Danny Lyon, one of the great American photographer-filmmakers, who’s in all the American museums and a close friend of Robert Frank, these are giants in the history of photography and cinema. I’m still amazed.

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We're talking about cinema. Yesterday, I was offered the opportunity to host a book signing with Catherine Deneuve... CATHERINE agreed to come to our store in February to sign a book she made in Japan. So, that’s information from yesterday, but it happens every day.

 

You were talking about fashion. Yesterday, I met one of the two founders of Veja in a bar, for example. What was interesting is that we’ve known these guys since their early days. We were the first to sell their shoes in our store, just like we were the first to sell Rivieras. 

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They’re friends, just like how you suddenly become friends with people who later become Daft Punk or Phoenix. Well, these are friends who made Rivieras, and they’re still around, and friends who made Veja, and they’re still going. It was funny to remember that. And now, we’re very present in Asia, and they’re a bit less, they changed distributors. I told them, 'You know, I think we have the structure to distribute for you in South Korea.' So, it’s funny how life is full of rebounds, accidents, surprises... That’s what interests me.

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KOLROY : What’s the future of Ofr ? And also, the day you stop, I don’t know if you’ve thought about it, maybe not, but what comes next ? What happens when you stop ? What will Ofr become ?

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*Laughs*
Alex : Well, I've never been as good at tennis, for example. Physically, I’m in top shape, I’ve never been better. You know, in tennis, there are rankings, it's easier to compare yourself. In a bookstore, you have more or fewer customers, that’s it… But anyway, tennis is interesting because of the rankings, and I’ve never had such a high ranking.

 

I play very little, maybe 5-6 times a year, and my only sport is moving these books, talking to people, starting new things… walking around the city, making books... To make books, you need to take the photos, you need to write them... So physically, I feel great, I think I’ve got 20 more years in me.

 

This pace, being present in the bookstore, means that every day you’re fed by new encounters. It's not just one person, it’s maybe twenty people a day who have a project, with whom you think intellectually, and physically. work on, and create with. I wish everyone could experience this rhythm, this daily life. In the morning, as soon as I wake up, the only thing I want to do is to head out into the city and open this store because it nourishes me with pleasure and, once again, with surprises.

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​Alex : Yesterday, when I was at the restaurant, I don’t know at all, but I also go to places where it’s possible to have these kinds of interactions. I don’t go to fancy places, I go to spots that are also Open, Free and Ready, places where it’s pretty laid-back and where encounters are possible, where discussions are possible.

 

The day before yesterday, I met a wonderful girl who makes a very beautiful and well-made magazine. We had a conversation, and the next day, here at the store, I had a Chinese person asking me to make a book. I thought to myself, 'This is exactly what the girl I met yesterday knows how to do and has already done.' So, I was able to show her the book that you want to make about your Chinese city. I know exactly the right person to make it.

 

Even though she comes from a big advertising agency, but those agencies are too far, they’re not fast enough. So, this efficiency in getting things done goes hand in hand with speed, presence, open-mindedness, and saying to yourself, 'We almost never have meetings, we don’t have computers.' This means that people pass by, they bump into me, or Marie, or Antoine who’s been here for a few years and can also meet people, or Agulin who’s here on weekends. So, it’s a structure we’ve kept super light, with no hierarchy, to maintain closeness, to catch those talents, those ideas.

 

​​​Once again, and for us personally, as well as to transform them into what we know how to do, today, as you noticed, we’ve got a new capsule with an artist named Aleksi Cavaillez. We made t-shirts and hoodies with him, we took some of his graphics and illustrations.

He comes from the world of comics, typically. We take care of him as an artist, so we showcase him a lot and we make books with him.

Sometimes he makes logos, posters, or more specific visuals for our bags or the posters we put in our windows. And then I thought, hey, this visual could be a bit playful with the issue, so we started creating this brand for fun called Paris Intelligence Program (PIP), which we love. We're trying to be a bit of the Parisian issue. Maybe it won’t lead to much, but right now we’re selling quite a few products with this story, and it amuses us. It also brings people into the bookstore, these projects, not only do you sell a few t-shirts and feel happy, but it also brings in people who weren’t interested in books or who were intimidated by them.

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Alex : I saw that when I was at Killiwatch. When we were in the middle of Killiwatch's clothes, we were at the entrance, and it was clear that an entire generation was intimidated by books, that the book object itself was something not necessarily easy.

 

But we would say, don't worry, for us, it's mostly about images, you don't need to know how to read, you don't need to have a vast cultural knowledge to understand the value of a book or to be interested in a particular type of image. And I hope, and I think, we've helped open the bookstore in general to a whole generation of young people who hadn’t been there in a long time.

 

Maybe we’ll find them on the manga side... but for now, we’ve got them. Someone like Virgil Abloh also really helped, he built the bridge between the world of sneakers, streetwear, and the world of galleries and art bookstores. He popularized this a lot, but also, when people, Virgil’s fans, followed him and came to our place, they weren’t disappointed, and they came back. And they keep coming.

 

So, this openness to books, we continue to maintain it. At one point, there was no more space in the bookstore, people were stepping on each other, so we removed some furniture, recreated a better flow, we added things, the books now go all the way to the back of the store, and we redid the shelves so everyone could keep coming in. We have a large terrace, we put a bench outside so people can wait for their friends who are shopping or looking around.

 

People come with their dogs, their kids, there’s space for strollers, wheelchairs, basically, it’s for everyone,

and Ofr means this : Open Free & Ready.

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KOLROY : Anyway I can confirm the responsiveness, because I told him just before : "we can do an interview whenever you want" and we did it right away. That's maximum responsiveness, thank you.