Léa Mousseron : Turning Childhood Dream into Successful Business 

Not just a simple accessory; it allows you to carry a piece of Mauritius with you wherever you go. The 100% Mauritian bags from LOL Accessories are at the same time minimalist but also adorn with a touch of style and fanciness. The entrepreneur Léa Mousseron shares with us her love for crafts and creativity and how she decided to launch her business.

Often, simple ideas may seem trivial but sometimes they give birth to great things. This is the journey of Léa Mousseron: She created one hundred percent locally made bags, which has become one of the must-haves for the fashionable island girl and tourists. 

The woman entrepreneur shares that after her studies in France and after spending five years abroad, she came back to her motherland. “I studied in a business school in France where I specialised in Marketing. After years working in France, India and Australia, I came back,” explains Léa, who dreamt since her childhood days to launch her own fashion or accessories shop. “I always wanted to do that so as to have access to and to enjoy the products.”

Indeed since she was a child, Léa loved everything about crafts and DIYs. She in fact inherited this passion from her mother with whom she used to do crafts. “We’ve always loved it! When my older brothers left for their studies, we transformed one of their rooms into a little workshop where we would create lots of different things such as decorations, presents, scrapbooking. We also loved going to Port Louis, Triolet or Quatre Bornes to look out for some new fabrics.”

Its seven years back that the idea to create LOL Accessories popped into Léa and her mother’s minds. “My mum and I are really close and we’ve always wanted to create something together. Our motivation was to create products 100% made in Mauritius. Also, we’ve always loved to buy all sorts of bags and we thought that it would be a great product to create locally,” she states. 

Minimalist but trendy

Léa says that she proposes bags for everyday use at LOL Accessories and they all adorn familiar and well-known places names on them. “The bags are mostly for everyday use; for example, we have little bags which you can put in your handbags, toilet and beach bags. All of them are available in various sizes, shapes and colors. The products are available in twenty-six different colors. We also did some bracelets and cushions.” 

She further explains that “the ‘Directions of Mauritius’ bags are likewise made for tourists and Mauritians living abroad who want to take back with them a souvenir or a little piece of Mauritius in their suitcases. The woman entrepreneur gets all her raw material from Port Louis and works closely with two small factories, namely in Triolet and Roche Bois to make her local products.

But from where does Léa and her mother get their inspiration to create their hip island bags? “Travel is our best source of inspiration for the bags and for the design, it’s all about Mauritius.” And one important thing that they put into practice is to listen to what clients want and look for. “We always listen to our client’s feedbacks and try to adapt to their wants to the best of our abilities. For example, we have created a bag with the picture of a dodo doing kitesurf, according to a client’s wish. It was a really fun bag to create and we enjoyed doing it,” she utters. 

Being her own boss and having to handle her personal life all together, Léa trusts that the secret for a woman to do it all is simple. We need to have a sense of balance. “I think it’s all about life equilibrium.” Her advice to women who dream of launching their own small business: “Go for it! You will really enjoy doing what you want and if you can share it with someone you like, then it will be definitely great.”