Maurice Ohayon

For Maurice Ohayon, denim is a true passion. In 2003, after twenty-five years of working with denim, reining in its natural tendency to warp, mastering different washes, and pioneering new cutting techniques, he founded Notify.

Ohayon was born in 1959 in Casablanca, Morocco. His mother worked as a men’s tailor from home, measuring her customers, advising them on the styles best suited for their body types, and cutting muslin patterns for their fittings. The huge family dining room table was transformed during the day into a cutting surface around which employees and apprentices bustled about, creating buttonholes, setting linings, and sewing on pockets.

The whole house lived according to the rhythm of the suits, their fittings, and the stress of last-minute alterations. Ohayon based the fundamentals of his craft on his childhood memories.

In 1973, his family moved permanently to Paris, and in 1976 Ohayon began fashion school, where he learned the ins and outs of mass production. Three years later, his diploma in hand, he set out to open an atelier like the one he remembered from his childhood. With a friend, he leased a space in Paris’ Eleventh Arrondissement, bought used machinery, and launched the brand Fetiche. One day, a fabric supplier put in his hands a strange bolt of stiff material whose indigo color stained their fingers: denim.

From that moment on, Ohayon had to revise everything he knew about fabrics. It would take him four years to master the principles of cutting, assembling, and shrinking denim. Twenty-five years later, Maurice Ohayon remains fascinated by this material, which he has come to know like the back of his hand.

With Notify, Ohayon seeks to apply to jeans the tailoring techniques that he learned from his mother. Ohayon favors exacting cuts, traditional handmade details, and superb craftsmanship. He believes that pockets are very important—his mother would often say that "the air of a man depends upon the right balance of his pockets’ shape and positioning."

Ohayon embroiders the name of his brand on the inside waistband of each pair of jeans, just like his mother used to do with the name of her clients inside their suits. This mix of modern fashion and old-world details has made Ohayon an international success