The story behind Atelier Septante-Six

I was born in 1975.
So why, you might wonder, Atelier Septante-Six?

Because some numbers don’t mark a year.
They mark a place in the body.

When I was eight years old, my parents bought a chalet in the Swiss Alps, in a small village called Champéry, tucked away in Valais. Back then, Champéry counted around 700 souls when the season slept—doubled in 40 years to 1’400 souls. A village where time moved slower, where everyone knew everyone, where childhood stretched wide and endless.

From that moment on, my life was rhythm.
Weekends. Holidays. Summers and winters.
Pool days, fireplace nights, backgammon & game evenings with the parents, barbecues, mountain bikes, skiing, snowboarding, long hikes, first kisses, friendships that would last decades. Silly moments, stupid ideas, pure laughter—the kind that anchors itself in you and never really leaves.

Champéry may be small, but it belongs to something vast.
It is part of the Portes du Soleil, within the Dents du Midi region—one of the largest ski domains in the world. Two countries. Over 600 kilometers of slopes. More than 200 lifts. A playground that quietly shapes you without asking permission.

I was on skis by the age of two.
There was no debate. No choice. You get up. You go. You follow. Hated it. Loved it.
And then came the deeper skiing—not competition, never that—but intensity. Commitment. Presence.

And then there was Chavanette.
The Swiss Wall.

I was nine years old when I skied it for the first time, with my father. Going up that two seater lift with a spring bar to hold us safe scared me every single time. The moguls at the top were almost twice my height. My body was shaking before the first turn. Fear was there—raw, electric—but so was something else. A call. A knowing. That moment where you don’t know if you can… and go anyway.

That moment changed me.

To this day, when I get into meditation or modified states of consciousness through hypnosis and ask them to find their safe space, I am there, I’m a teen.
At the top of that slope.
Facing the Dents du Midi.
Looking down the Swiss Wall.
Feeling the energy move through my body—fear, calm, power, stillness—all at once.

This place is my anchor.
My Swiss home.
My return point.

I love skiing. I love water. I’m not as relentlessly active as I once was—but Atelier Septante-Six carries those sensations. That inner quiet. That clarity that only comes when you’re fully, undeniably there.

So… why Septante-Six?

Septante-Six means seventy-six.
Most French-speaking countries don’t say septante. That word belongs almost exclusively to Switzerland—and Belgium. I wanted that Swiss imprint. Something subtle. Something that speaks without explaining itself.

And if you’re still wondering why this name, out of a million possibilities—thank you for asking.

Chavanette, the Swiss Wall, holds a sacred place in my life. In my body. In my growth. It is one of the steepest and most demanding slopes in the world. Every season, it calls thousands of skiers—some for pleasure, some for challenge… and some, tragically, to their end. I’ve witnessed it. First-hand. More than once.

Chavanette isn’t blue, red, or black.
It’s orange.
Outside the scale.

Its steepness ranges from 37 to 43 degrees.
That’s 76 to 90 percent.

Seventy-six resonated.
The sound. The frequency. The weight of it.

So here it is: Septante-Six.

Atelier Septante-Six is every time I skied that slope.
The burning legs. The falls. The ice. The powder. The slush.
The rocks that destroyed my skis, my snowboard—yes, even a monoski (it was the 90s).

It’s skiing with a broken arm, a plaster cast wrapped in a plastic bag because I refused not to go—no glove, no excuses.

It’s omelettes in Marmottes,
It’s days skiing with the parents,
It’s Free-Riding with friends,
It’s crêpes in Avoriaz.
Hot dogs and drinks at the Chavanette buvette.
Liz’s playlist blasting through the speakers like it owned the mountain.

It’s Andy Mac & Paul.
Piste Artiste.
La Crevasse.
Le Bar des Guides.
Walking up to the chalet by day, by night, with my mates.
Tante Yvonne at the local pool—kicking us out, banning us for a week because we soaked the ceiling with water bombs, and parents being informed about it before we got home, as in any small place.

It’s getting arrested with my mate Jean-Pierre for riding two on a bike—by a corrupt cop who fined us just because he could.

It’s crossing the resort again and again.
It’s teaching my daughter to ski.
Switzerland. France.
Free riding. Carving. Exploring. Wandering.

It’s friendships that stayed.
Friendships that softened.
Friendships that faded—because life moves, whether we want it to or not.

It’s love.
Life.
Desire and pain. Joy and loss. Passion and vulnerability.
The raw, intimate truth of being human—and the breathtaking vastness that opens when we surrender to a moment, a place, the outdoors.

Atelier Septante-Six is about people.
About family, friends, souls.
About how we meet each other.
How we meet nature.
How we meet ourselves.

It isn’t slick.
It isn’t polished.
It isn’t trying to be perfect.

It’s raw.
Unapologetic.
Vulnerable.

It carries my signature—beautiful and unforgiving at once.

It’s about those fleeting instants that shape a life.
Moments that pass… and yet remain forever.

Atelier Septante-Six doesn’t try to be something.

It simply is.
Beyond the moment.