Meet OOOF, the Business Inspired by Never Working

It might seem paradoxical that the notion of being out of office forever sparked an entrepreneurial endeavor.

But for Celine Kaplan and Elisabeth Holder, OOOF is a brand built on a state of mind rather than an actual working arrangement (or lack thereof).

“When COVID happened, we were all out of the office, which I always love,” says Kaplan, a publicist who splits her time between Portugal, France and New York. “The idea was what we wanted ourselves to do: go from the corner office to being out of office forever. That was the starting point, and COVID pushed it a bit further.”

Although the brand is built off of the sense of a permanent vacation, it was actually their careers that brought them together.

“We met 15 years ago because Celine was my PR when I ran Ladurée, and we are very used to working together after all these years,” Holder says. “Around two years ago, we had this conversation around what we should do. We like to travel, we like to discover new brands to buy, and seeing things that nobody has.”

Holder says the genesis of the brand took “about five minutes,” noting that the name resonated for English speakers and Francophones alike. “We did this brainstorming, Celine was thinking in terms of communication and I in terms of marketing. The name was strong, the design was great, and that was it. In French, you can use ‘oof’ in so many ways, such as to say, ‘it’s amazing, it’s incredible, it’s crazy.’ It’s a phrase we use a lot.”

And thus, a business was born. OOOF launched in 2023 with a necklace charm fashioned off of a flipper and has since grown to entail branded ceramic mugs, caftans modeled by Kaplan and embroidered pillows with phrases like “Bla bla bla” and “Oh oui!” on the brand’s website. Prices range from $25 for a keychain to $780 for the necklace charm.

The launches are led more by intuition than by a business plan. “We’re not following a marketing calendar because we don’t have to,” Kaplan says. “We go by travel, discovery, reading, exhibitions — everything can be an inspiration.”

Adds Holder, “It’s all about lifestyle and pleasing our customer by having the best product at the best moment. Of course, we could follow a marketing schedule, but what’s fun is to be totally free.”

The pillows, for example, came from a friend of the duo who has a charity workshop in Senegal called CSAO. “We asked her to make a special collection for us,” Kaplan says. “It’s all about opportunities, and the next step is a very small drop from everything I was inspired by during my time in India.”

The brand relies on collaborations such as that with CSAO. In that vein, OOOF also offers bag charms in collaboration with jewelry brand Don’t Let Disco, which was founded by Ashley Harris in 2021 and who sourced materials from Italy, Spain and Mexico. Limited-edition beanies boasting the brand’s name were made in Cova Do Vapor, a fishing village near Lisbon.

Although wearable, Kaplan thinks of the launches as being more about desirability than function. “Our first collection was the gold 18-karat flipper charm. It’s useless, and at the same time, everyone needs it,” she says. “We’re doing that one in enamel. It’s in production as we speak.”

Kaplan may have drawn branding inspiration from her professional life as a publicist, but says the overlap between her two jobs is sparse.

“It was a big learning curve for me to talk about inventory,” Kaplan says. “I trust my instinct, but with clients it can be a bit different and we have to obey certain rules. With OOOF, I apply my creative freedom to the brand without any constraints.”