Hello my lovelies,
We meet again for a new interview. As usual, it is a great and inspiring woman that I chose to highlight: Caroline Margeridon.
Emblematic professional buyer of the show “Affaire Conclue” presented by Sophie Davant on France 2, Caroline is not only a renowned art dealer but also the head of several companies. She has a security company, an events company and a travel agency.
Although she comes from a wealthy family, shehas inherited nothing. She has been working hard since the age of 15 to make her fortune. Her career journey is one to be admired.
She has very kindly agreed to answer my questions.
I hope you will enjoy her testimony as much as the previous ones. Without further ado, I invite you to discover this touching, funny, luminous and beautiful woman.
Big hug,
– Kat.
K: You’ve been working since you were 15 years old. What kind of student were you?
Caroline: A very bad student. N disciplined at all. I went to allthe private schools in the 16th arrondissement of Paris to the great despair of my parents.
K: What studies did you follow after the BAC?
Caroline: Well, when people ask me how I got there, I answer “I have a BAC-4”.
K: For the Margeridons, we can say that antiques are a family affair and an eternal love story. Your mother was an antique dealer, you are an art dealer and your children also cultivate this passion. Was it your duty to pass on this passion to your children or did it happen naturally?
Caroline: So listen, when I was a child, I dreamed of being an art dealer. When I was 5 or 6 years old, I dreamed of being an art dealer, I hung out at flea markets, I sold nails, you see. That was my thing, I knew I’d be a dealer or a show organizer. I did some very big shows for 30 years in Paris. And I thought that, like my kids, I raised them by myself and they’ve been hanging out with me from babies to now, I was going to give them that passion. I was a little bit disgusted at one time because when I was a kid, I used to go to museums instead of going to the beach and so on and I would say “I can’t take it anymore, I can’t take it anymore” so I avoided boring things to my kids. And eventually it worked both ways because I’m there and now they’re there. But you shouldn’t impose it on your children because you have a passion that unfortunately, you can’t give them that passion.
K: You have your shop at Marché Biron in Saint-Ouen. Your daughter Victoire and your son Alexandre also have their shop. What does this family business mean to you?
Caroline: Discipline, becoming a bad mother, which is not my character and it’s great to have your children with you because they live with me, they work with me. But they signed a paperfor me, when they were little that they would leave me when they turned 80 so it suits me very well.
K: You’re one of the emblematic professional buyers on the France 2 TV program “Affaire Conclue”. What does the show bring you?
Caroline: It brings me a lot of notoriety but what’s great is that I was already used to doing a lot of TV so it didn’t make my ankles fat.
K: While we’re on “Affaire Conclue”, I’d like to come back to the episode of “Affaire Conclue, la vie des objets” in which you visit Chantal Goya to give her the little Bécassine figurines. It was a very beautiful moment. It is clear that youwere very keen to give them to her. Are you an unconditional Chantal Goya fan?
Caroline: You should know that I’ve known Chantal Goya since I was born with Jean-Jacques Debout because I had a mother who was an antique dealer, who had shops in Honfleur and they used to come and buy from her a lot. I’ve known them since I was a child because Chantal is 44 years old, that is to say, she was born in the same year as my mother. And that’s why, and it’s very funny because we did a lot of things together, and in fact, when we did the filming for this program, the cameramen and journalists who were with us let us talk about something that happened 20, 30, 40 years ago – there are never any scripts with me, that’s what’s great. At one point, they said, “But how come you have so many memories?”. Chantal Goya and Jean-Jacques Debout are people I’ve known since I was very young so it was very important for me to go and see her. It’s true that instinctively, as I respect her, I adore her, I got down on my knees because she’s a wonderful woman, because she’s had an extraordinary career, she’s touched about 5 generations I think.
And at one point, her career was shattered over some bullshitbecause reporters cut you off when you talk sometimes. Sometimes you can say something stupid and unfortunately, it’sautomatically misinterpreted. It almost shattered the career of this woman, who is a very nice woman. Luckily, today she’s a big hit, she’s back on the stage again. She’s still a woman who has reignedd for 70 years and she’s exceptional. That’s why it touched me so much to go to her house, to deliver these objects to her because Bécassine is really something that comes from her. And by the way, for the anecdote, you know that by delivering Bécassine to her, I learned that Tintin copied Bécassine. That is to say that Bécassine existed before Tintinand if you look at Tintin’s head, it’s the same head as Bécassine. And Bécassine has existed longer than Tintin. Unbelievable !Tintin, he’s Belgian and Bécassine, she’s from Brittany. In fact, Hergé, who drew Tintin, was inspired by Bécassine’s face and look carefully, if you remove their hair, it’s the same head.
K: We also saw you in “Paris c’est à vous!” on BFMTV and in “Box aux enchères” on C8. What do you get out of each of your TV experiences?
Caroline: “Paris, c’est à vous” was a result of the BFM shows I was doing. You should know that I prefer live shows. I don’treally like shows that are prepared, but that’s OK. The boxes, they came looking for me because the producer of this show is a friend of mine. He came to see me and I thought he was looking for dealers, so I said, “You should go see such and such”, and he said, “Oh no, no, not at all, we want you”. I said, “Oh no, I’m not amused at all by your thing” and I did it for fun, really. So, the stalls were fun, we had a lot of fun, it was funny. I know that now it’s coming back to Belgium. I think it’s coming back to Belgium because “Affaire Conclude”, they watch it in Belgium too, so they surfed a little bit on a wave. Because this show, they released it as a bonus on D8 which is called C8 today, in France. Unfortunately, we went out on Saturday night during Euro2016 and the French, they started to win, win, win. That is to say, even the people who didn’t like football, clung on to it. Which makes sense. As a result, the show didn’t do very well, even though it’s an American show that’s basically a big hit in the United States. I think it could have been a hit if it hadn’t been on at that time.
When Warner (“Affaire Conclue”) picked me up, it was, I think, as a result of the BFM shows I was doing live and the boxesorthe other show. I didn’t want to do the show at first. That’s it, just like that, it’s clear. I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it. And then they insisted and I said “ok, I’ll do a test run to see”. I got hooked on the game. At first, I was there to do a show once in a while and I do them all now. It’s going great, we’re having a great time.
K: Whilst doing my research, I found out that you have been running the security company “Private Security Alert” since 1993 as well as your events company “Caro Connection” and that in 2017, you founded the travel agency “Mille & une nuits voyage”. These activities are very diverse… Why this choice?
Caroline: I set up the security company because when I was organizing very large antique fairs, I needed security guards. Isaid to myself, “But I can’t afford to pay them anymore, so I’m going to set up my own company and I’m going to write myself a cheque.
And besides, you have to know that in antique shops, all prices have to be labelled. That’s the law. And when you’re a custodian, sometimes you don’t make a lot of money and you’re human. If one day you have a problem and you see that an object is worth so much, maybe you can, out of clumsiness or because you have problems, steal it. I thought, “The boys, they’re going to work for me. I’ll be their boss, they won’t steal from me”. That’s how I started this company. They’re all older than me, they all call me “mom”. What’s really nice is that all the boys work for me: I have 80 boys working full-time, I have about 200 subcontractors working for me. It’s really nice because, first of all, there are very few women who have babysitting companies. I’ve always done men’s jobs. From the moment you arrive and you’re a woman, people look at you, they’re amazed. In the beginning, I started this little company just to guard my salons. I was a baby,I was barely 20 years old. Then, finally, it turned out that now I’m into a lot of event planning.
I keep a lot of things from the world of antiques. Even Biron, for example, it’s me who’s been keeping the Marché Biron for 23 years. But as I’m very much involved in events: I do the Solidays in Paris, Rock en Seine, … I do a lot of events, it’s a bit like my job. Events is the base of it all.So that’s how I created this company. It started out as a baby box. It’s still a small company, by the way. It’s very family oriented. It’s a small company that’s doing very well.
Then, “Caro Connection”, was because it’s the logical progression of the organization of shows I used to do because I kept on organizing things. Then, I didn’t get along with the Paris City Hall anymore, so I stopped. The travel agency was because I was organising big shows.
In fact, I always brought the world together. That’s kind of my way of life. So that’s why I set up the travel company. But the travel company was really a little accessory that I made for a while. It’s really a very small string to my bow.
The big big things are trade shows, event planning. It’s the shops in Biron because today, I have five of them. It’s the security company. There you go… which isn’t bad at all!! And incidentally, the shows.
In fact, in two words, I work night and day, 7 days a week.
K: Is this diversification a way for you to combine all your passions?
Caroline: Absolutely! But if you notice, all these passions, they are coherent. It always touches the world of art and antiques.
K: I know you work hard. How does a typical week go?
Caroline: It’s super simple. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, officially, I’m at Marché Biron. Tuesday, I do the boring paperwork that I hate, the deliveries, the appointments to go see the furniture because I don’t only buy on “Affaire Conclue”. You can imagine that I do estates and so on. Wednesdays and Thursdays I’m usually on location. On Fridays, we rearrange the stands in Biron, in the morning: it’s professional day. On Friday afternoons, I make appointments or with journalists or “La vie des objets” or now the battles. Because now we are sent to people’s homes but for Sunday. And Saturday, Sunday, Monday, I start the Flea Market again.
K: I chose to fight for equality between men and women all over the world. What is the place of women in the circles in which you work?
Caroline: I absolutely did not choose to fight for equality between men and women. I am sure that we women, and it’sbeing macho in reverse, we are much stronger than men. So, I never tried to fight. I fought because I started very young, I was 15 years old, to get older for a very long time, to be more credible because I was working in a man’s world. And then, in my time, it was more complicated than it is today. I never wanted equality between men and women. Boys are babies. I have a son and a daughter, they are nine months apart, but my son is a baby next to his sister. So that’s it, boys are babies. As long as you understand that, you’re queen of the world.
K: What would you say to a young girl who wants to be a businesswoman or a businesswoman like you?
Caroline: I don’t have any advice to give because advisors aren’t usually the payers. The only thing I would advise a young girl to do is to say to herself, “Do what you like”. As long as you do something you love, you’ll get there. That’s the only advice I can give someone.
K: You look like an elegant, bright, kind and funny woman despite your busy schedule. How do you explain the positive and inspiring image you convey to us?
Caroline: Ah that, I don’t know darling, that’s for you to answer. I don’t know why I transmit this image. Because I’m lucky and I have a lucky star above me. Because I’m always in a good mood, because life is worth living. And people, instead of sulking, they’d better look around them and realize something: apart from the diseases, nothing is important.
K: I’d also like to point out your style of dress, which I think is sublime. How do you cultivate your style?
Caroline: It’s funny because a lot of people talk to me about my style of dress. I don’t have a style of dress. A lot of people ask me who I dress for. I can be with $10 pants on me and a very expensive jacket or the other way around. Do you know how I dress? In the morning, in 4 and a half minutes, depending on the weather.
When we do the shows, whether it’s men or women, we have the hairdressers, makeup artists, etcetera. It’s called catering in our house. I don’t get my hair done, I don’t get dressed, I don’t get my makeup done. I come straight here and I’m lucky. That’s all I get.
That’s why people, when they see me in real life, they tell me I look the same.
So it’s luck and a lack of objectivity from people who like me a lot.
K: Finally, what are the 3 words that best describe you?
Caroline: Good humor, kindness and… and I don’t know… you find the third word.
You know what? I think when you love yourself, you can only love people.
K: Thank you so much, Caroline.
My lovelies, don’t hesitate to share this interview with your loved ones if you liked it.
Also, I advise you to follow Caroline on Instagram (@caromargeridon) and to watch “Affaire Conclue” every day from 4:15 pm on France 2.
–Kat.
-ITW May 18th 2019