Olivia Dhordain
Spotlight
Law & Art celebrates creativity beyond the courtroom. Each season, we spotlight a lawyer-artist whose work bridges law and art. This autumn, meet Olivia Dhordain — a French intellectual-property lawyer in the luxury world who moonlights as an upcycling artist, stitching wit and irony into her portraits of corporate life.
Olivia's Story
Olivia is a French lawyer specialised in intellectual property and admitted to the Paris bar in 2000. After nearly a decade in private practice working for a magic circle firm, she pursued the next 17 years of her career inhouse with an international luxury group, co-managing the IP team. In 2024, she set up her own practice in Geneva under the name "Outboxing IP".
Olivia explains: "Art is not linear – it needs space. Sometimes it lies dormant but given space, art will grow back – stronger for having observed and lived, seen and learned. I have always drawn and chose Art as a subject matter for my International Baccalaureat. I never stopped drawing as I went through my law studies and legal career. I sketched Court hearings, I sketched my colleagues (they all kept the sketches). I painted for children when I was pregnant and then, when I worked in-house, I submitted a few ideas for watch collections and spent the larger part of my time with the creative fauna of the different Maisons. I always thought that certain aspects of the corporate world needed to be “told” through art but I never found the medium to do it. The minute I left that world, the idea of using fabric became obvious – even if I had never before used fabric as a mode of expression".
Olivia's Work
Corporate Culture (Upcycled)
With a dose of (dark) humour, the “sewings” in this collection created by Olivia Dhordhain candidly depict the portrait of a de-humanizing corporate world in which weaponised language loses all meaning. The childlike patchwork, made from work tailor suits and shirts that have been shredded and torn, highlights the contrast between the virtuous rhetoric and a reality shaped by
daily violence.
Using the puppet is a classic device which allows for satire and derision. It is also a way to shift the discourse, to exaggerate it in order to better expose it. To provoke laughter: "Laughter is the first act of resistance", explains Olivia. "When shared, it becomes a form of consolation".
The last piece, Paradox, was inspired by a recent lecture Olivia attended on the “The 6 paradoxes of leadership” which addressed the tensions that are at the heart of any leadership role. It contrasts with the other pieces, and depicts a different type of organisation where there is space for individuals, adaptability and a shared purpose.
This collection is a call for change, with a firm belief that change is possible, but that it must be brought about with the language of truth.
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of art. Characters, situations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in an artistic manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
