About

Our name

What’s in a name?

Cape de Coeur is a play on the French adage “coup de coeur,” commonly used in the fashion industry to express the feeling of discovering a piece you fall in love with. From this sentiment, Cape de Coeur was born, a labour of love fuelled by design and innovation to create a piece that redefines your wardrobe—and your lifestyle.

Our design philosophy

We don’t live inside the rules of high fashion—we rewrite them.

We believe that beauty and function are constantly in balance, in an elegant dance between form and function, substance and style, performance and polish. The fluidity of this juxtaposition inspires our design to shift the paradigm of technical outerwear, because like our wearer, our garments cannot be restricted—they journey with ease from one context to the next, luxuriously, beautifully, and protectively.

We approach our garments holistically, with equal attention to fabric, silhouette, artful textures, and motifs, each of which informs the other and elevates it simultaneously—one is never sacrificed. We use the latest technology in performance wear to create a functional and high-fashion garment, with no spared attention to the details that satisfy both. To us, thoughtful design means creating with the wearer in mind, which makes our pieces especially functional and exceptionally stylish. From day to night, one place to the next, our capes are designed to move with and motivate a life of liberty.

Our design inspiration 

Old world heritage meets new world innovation.

Cape de Coeur is the brainchild of Austrian-born designer Bettina Mueller Reichl, who has lived and breathed European design culture, having lived and worked in the design industry there for most of her life. The old-world heritage of her European background blends and simultaneously contrasts with the new-world experience of her life now in Vancouver, Canada, the hub of technical apparel innovation.

Bettina’s career spans from owning a private fashion label in the late 90s to movie costume design, illustrating the Paris runway shows for magazines and newspapers, and winning numerous awards for fashion design and innovation for international sportswear labels. She has more than 20 years of experience in technical apparel design, working with the most renowned international design teams of technical performance wear. Bettina’s design aesthetic is influenced by mid-century haute couture designers like Elsa Schiaparelli, Cristobal Balenciaga, Charles James and Christian Dior, and the Surrealistic Art of Salvador Dali. Her love for texture is influenced by the art deco and nouveau movements of her Hometown, Vienna. It’s also inspired by the nuances of traditional Japanese art and silhouettes and modern Japanese fashion design. Her technical design approach is drawn from the works of Industrial Design Icons like Dieter Rams or Architects like Zaha Hadid.