There’s no routine in our work or our workshop. Every object is different, every object comes with its own story – a wall decoration from a castle or a sandal that’s been buried for 800 years – and we have to adapt and discover each process.

I’m inspired by research. It’s vital that my work to restore an object does not reinterpret what it was meant to be used for and so I must research historical manufacturing techniques to understand how an object was created; it’s something I love.

Our first step is always cleaning, which is time-consuming. Although I still often use cotton swabs and cloths, we can now sometimes use modern techniques to speed up and improve our process. I recently used a laser to clean a 17th century altar frontal.

Before wallpapers were used for wall coverings, walls were covered in leather. These were real works of art – painted and gilded. France had a long tradition of decorative leathers, which we also restore at the workshop.