Bisou Bisou Creator Shares Her Secrets of Success

Michele Bohbot attributes her success to immersing herself in her vision without neglecting family, wellness, or spirituality.

Michele Bohbot, the founder of the successful fashion brand Bisou Bisou, arrived in America with two suitcases and a dream. It was 1987, and Michele and her husband, Marc, secured a license to sell jeans. With high hopes, they rented a warehouse in Los Angeles and set up shop. They lost their entire investment.

Michele grew up in Paris, France, and had always dreamed of coming to America and making it. After losing everything, Marc wanted to return to his family in Europe. Michele didn’t. Business was difficult in Paris, particularly for a woman. “I refused to believe that America, a country that I loved so much, would not love me back,” she said in an Aish.com interview. “I had to try harder.”

Even though Michele had no money, she went downtown every day to find an office she could rent. While there, she bumped into a seamstress she had employed at the denim company. They had worked well together. “When the business went bankrupt, she had asked if she could purchase all the sewing machines. We told her to pay us whenever she could.”

When the woman heard Michele planned to start a new company, she got excited. “Let's do something together.”

Michele trusted her and felt their meeting had been orchestrated from above. “Plus, I found an office the same day.”

The office was a tiny room that cost $160.00 a month. She perused Michaels looking for material and created dress patterns on the floor of her office.

Eventually, she needed a label. “I didn’t have any money, so I thought, what can I do? I was always saying bisou, which means ‘kiss’ in French. So, I put some lipstick on my lips and kissed each garment with my mouth and sewed the words ‘Bisou Bisou’ on each piece.”

Now Michele had a product, but no buyers. “I was 28 years old and very naïve, but driven. I didn’t know the market. I had no clue what prices should be. I went to all the buildings downtown to try to sell. I knew in my heart that I could make a beautiful collection, but I didn’t know how to sell or manufacture them.”

Initially, her husband didn’t want to help. “He wanted to see me fail because he was eager to move back, but I told him, let me just do it step by step.”

Michele went to The California Mart and to corporate showrooms with her clothing. “I did my speech and I got rejected over and over again until I reached the 13th floor.” Fortunately, that’s where she met two salesmen who loved the collection and believed in it enough to invest.

Marc, who had been in the garment industry in France, came to introduce himself. Marc was surprised and thrilled by everyone’s positive reaction to her collection.

They closed a verbal deal and the two men asked, “Do you have a fax machine?”

“Yes, of course!” Michele responded. She dashed out to buy one. Within one week, they were brimming with orders — so many they didn’t have the manpower to fill them.

Michele met Mr. Winner, a banker, who connected her to people who could help her. Michele was willing to do whatever it took to keep her dream alive.

Marc decided join Michele to help grow the company. “Through highs and lows, we became a great team together and found the balance between personal life and business.”

Within their first sales year, Bisou Bisou moved offices and expanded. She sold her collection to Contempo, Nordstrom and stores all over the world. When she introduced stretch fabric, the feedback was tremendous. She even conceived of the stretch jean, stretch lace, slinky fabric, and other novelty fabrics. Her constant innovation put her on the map as a designer.

“Marc introduced me to some of his European friends who manufactured the fabric in France. It was a ton of work, but it paid off. We quickly made back our original investment. I suggested we stay longer and double our profit before moving back. When we achieved that goal, Marc suggested we sell the company.”

The banker insisted that they hold off and not sell the company. He was adamant. “Don’t sell this to anyone. This is going to be huge.”

Michele found herself stuck between the banker and her husband. “Even if you sell 5% of the value,” Marc told her, “it’s worth millions of dollars. Sell!”

Michele smiles as she remembers these conversations. “We never sold. I told Marc, ‘Let’s make the company that we came to this country to create.’ As we continued to grow, Marc’s love for the company grew as well.”

They opened retail stores all over the world and enjoyed success in the United States, Singapore, Japan, France and many more countries.

In 2002, Michele was given an opportunity to sign an exclusive contract with JC Penney. “I had just had my twins, my 6th and 7th children. I wanted to take care of my children, and this was the way to scale back…I was proud to bring luxury fashion to the masses at an affordable price point.”

Work-Home Balance

Michele has seven children, and when she was growing Bisou Bisou, she had to develop a strong sense of organization. She set firm boundaries to enable her to balance the intense workload and her home life.

“I prioritized my kids and made sure to spend quality time with them, and when I was with them, I was fully present. I never took a phone call when I was with them, and if my kids needed to talk to me, I stopped everything.”

Michele created a schedule. “Every night we would bond over dinner, and we took wonderful family vacations together.”

When Michele created the brand XOXO, a junior-sized offshoot of Bisou Bisou, she felt overwhelmed with the workload. She was worried she would not have enough time with her children, but they all encouraged her to take the project on.

Michele explains that working actually helped her be a better mother and wife. Her job kept her mind sharp, positive, and increased her creative thinking. “I knew that if I didn’t work while taking care of the kids, I would focus on superficial pursuits or on negative thought patterns.”

Jewish Life

When Michele and her husband arrived in America, they were not Jewishly observant. When it came time to put the children in school, everyone told them it was important to place them in a Jewish school.

“They told us it was an investment. We put them in a Jewish Orthodox school, even though we didn’t keep Shabbat and kosher at first. I had to stretch the truth in order to get our kids in. We didn’t have much intention to become Orthodox ourselves, but when we saw the beauty that Orthodox Judaism had to offer, we slowly, slowly started eating only kosher food and observing Shabbat. We were alone here and we wanted to be part of the community. The community had very strong family values.”

As the Bohbots’ children studied and grew, Michele learned and grew, too. “I learned about the philosophy of Judaism, and all the questions I asked had beautiful, spiritual explanations that made sense. Everyone will embrace Judaism if you learn the way I learned: with love and joy and compassion.”

Her Biggest Challenges

Upon Michele’s arrival in America, people had a hard time understanding her. “To overcome that, I had to talk strong and use my hands to compensate.” People didn’t think she was intelligent simply because of the language barrier. “I found myself wishing I could tell people, just because I speak with an accent doesn’t mean I think with one!”

Another challenge was working alongside her husband and being together 24/7. “The hardest piece was working with my husband as a partner. I had to learn how to separate personal life from business life.”

Michele’s family at her son’s wedding

Michele believes that the secret to marital harmony is finding a passion that is yours and yours alone. “I discovered yoga and meditation, and this helped me succeed in all areas of my life. It was my outlet. Incorporate action into your daily life. As Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said, move the energy in your body! It’s food for the cells, and the cells give you the energy.”

Even when Michele’s children were young, she had a yoga instructor come to the house. And although the kids were often running in and out of the session, she committed to it on a consistent basis.

“My instructor pushed me to try different types of yoga. After learning different yoga approaches, Michele opened a studio called Namastday which boasted 20 teachers. “It wasn’t lucrative, but it was my passion. I did this for five years, but then Covid broke out. I had to close the yoga center, and it was not worth it to reopen afterwards.”

During the pandemic, the studio became a testing center for Covid, hosting 1,000 people every day. When Michele saw the massive lines of people, she realized there was a tremendous need for a change in healthcare and wellness. She decided to transform the yoga studio into a wellness center called Oxynergy 2, which is a hyperbaric oxygen center for longevity and recovery.

Before opening her center, Michele traveled to Germany to research the hyperbaric oxygen machine. When she saw how people were healed from using the machine, she knew she had found her next calling. “It was a great experience for me. I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives and reinvent myself. I was excited to start something new. I had a vision.”

Michele became a Certified Hyperbaric Director and built a medical team for her wellness center. She brought her daughter Cloe on as co-founder. Today, she loves what she has created and the help she is able to offer her clients. “There is nothing like a family business to make a mother happy and my greatest joy is seeing how much I am helping people today to live life to the fullest.”

Secrets to Success

Michele encourages those starting a new venture to completely immerse themselves in their vision. “You have to eat, dream, and speak your vision. Today, I’m dreaming of Oxyenergy. When I was in Bisou Bisou, it was the same. That’s the secret to longevity.”

Michele also embraces positive thinking. “See the good in everything, because even if it doesn’t look good, it’s going to end up being good.”

The overarching lesson that she wants to share is, “Don’t overthink too much. Just do. And don’t let fear stop you. You have to remove fear…I was so scared to speak with my accent, but I kept opening my mouth and speaking. I overcame my fear every time, and my life soared. Every time you start something there is fear, but if you decide that you want it, you can do it. That’s it.”