How Le Marie Marché began

It started, the way many good things do, with a feeling we had no word for. A summer morning in a village above Avignon, a table laid under a fig tree, the sound of a market two streets away. And a question that would not leave: why could you not take this home with you?

When we built our first atmosphere market in 2016, we had no brand name, no logo, no budget. We had a notebook full of small sketches, a rolodex of French makers, and a handful of Dutch village squares we hoped would say yes.

The very first edition

That first edition counted twenty-eight stalls. Six from Provence, four from the Périgord, the rest Dutch makers with a French heart. It rained straight through the food tents. We thought we had failed, until a woman from The Hague mentioned, around half past eleven, that her daughter had not touched her phone for an hour. That was the first edition. That was the proof.

What we did not know

We did not know that nine years later there would be editions in Wassenaar, The Hague, Naarden and Maastricht. We did not know that the same baker from Lyon would still come over every season, that he would now know our children by name. We did not know a market could be such a simple thing, and at the same time something you cannot quite say out loud.

"Every edition feels like the first. And like the seventieth. At the same time."

Why we keep going

We keep going because there are still makers hiding behind an online shop while they are far more beautiful behind a counter. We keep going because a market morning can be the difference, for a family, between an overcrowded agenda and a peaceful Saturday. We keep going because, honestly, we love nothing more.

The next edition is already in the calendar. Until then: read around, look at the portraits, and we will see each other on a morning of lilacs and coffee.