The first time Lucien Pagès and Isabelle Chouvet talked about his agency joining The Independents, the communications group she founded with her husband Olivier in 2017, was in September 2022. They were in Blue Ribbon Sushi, on Sullivan Street in New York, so of course they codenamed their secret negotiation Blue Ribbon. And, of course, that’s where they went on Wednesday night to put ink to paper, to seal the deal.
But the story starts…