Meet Leo: The Real Cat Behind Doux Rêves.

The shelter

In January 2015, I rented a car and drove out to a shelter on the outskirts of Dubai: I decided I would go back home with a cat. Kittens were running everywhere: white ones, ginger ones, easy to fall for. Except one. He sat alone in a corner, eyes closed. The shelter staff explained: an eye infection, a skin infection, both left untreated too long to be cured. They didn't expect anyone to choose him.

I did.

Becoming Leo 
What followed was a season of vet visits, careful baths, and eye drops administered by hand. Slowly, the sick kitten in the corner became a white Persian cat with two different-colored eyes: one gold, one blue, the blue one permanently blind from the infection that went untreated before I found him.

Growing up, I'd had a cat of my own, a black street cat named Nana Maminette, who lived to nineteen. I'd always told myself that if I ever had another cat, it wouldn't be another black one, out of quiet loyalty to her memory. Leo, white from the start, was never in question.

Four cities, one constant 
That same year, Leo approved of someone new: the man I'd go on to marry. Together, the three of us started moving.

In 2019, Leo took his first flight, Emirati pet passport in hand, from Dubai to Paris. He spent that chapter discovering Provence on holiday, riding the TGV, taking the Métro for staycations at my mum, and driving out to the Île de Ré.

From Paris came Singapore: a thirteen-hour flight and a quarantine on arrival, made easier by regular visits from our newest family member, a baby just three months old. And when we moved on to Saigon, Leo landed there too, this time with a second baby by his side.

Leo turns twelve this year, and spends most of his day curled behind a stack of books, on the bed, or in a patch of window light. He's never been a demanding cat, but he has a way of showing up right when things feel unsteady.

During our last move, in the middle of one temporary apartment after another, my kids started asking where home actually was. I told them: home is where Leo is. They both agreed, and that was that.

Why every collection carries him
Leo's two different-colored eyes were never something I wanted to hide or explain away: it's part of why he's on every Doux Rêves collection. It's a small reminder that difference isn't something to correct.

Every piece we design carries a little of him in it: the same calm, the same steadiness that's followed him through every city he's lived in. Leo isn't a mascot I invented for the brand. He was already exactly this, long before Doux Rêves existed.