a genie’s lamp, night perfumes, a muse armchair…

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Hammer on the edges

For around ten years, alongside food work, Clément Cauvet has been creating lamps. Unique pieces that he designs, crafts and sells through word of mouth. Self-taught, he studied only a few months in an art school. “I wanted to paint, but I was paralyzed, he confides. The idea of ​​imagining a functional object that would speak to everyone seemed more coherent and modest to me: more interesting. »

Few resources, little training… Clément Cauvet claims the constraints. The powerful, brutalist and timeless aesthetic of his early work seduced Frédéric Winkler, co-founder with Philippe Cazer of DCW, a house specializing in the publishing of lighting fixtures. Three models of table lamps are now produced, two hundred copies each. Named Iota, Tau and Pi, these little colossi with raw concrete feet and more precious (brushed) brass plates covering the light parts fit perfectly into the industrial world of DCW.

Highly recommended

When the specialist in extreme cold innovation meets the expert in deconstruction, the result is inevitably a hybrid collection, with an unconventional design. For her second collaboration with Moncler, Chitose Abe, Japanese founder of the Sacai label, delved into seven decades of archives of the now Italian brand to imagine the next seven. Of French origin, Moncler celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2022 and likes to confront its history with the most cutting-edge creative visions. Sacai’s futuristic approach gave birth to four looks (two for women, two for men), available in black and off-white, totally polymorphic, which change at will like so many chrysalises. Integrated straps transform a down jacket into a backpack, the legs of baggy pants open to become a cape, a jacket and blazer cling to reveal a pleated dress… It’s as complex and original as it is aesthetic .

The snowball effect

A free electron of Italian postmodern design, Alessandro Mendini had fun playing with the codes of the history of the arts in all his creations. The most famous of them is the Proust armchair, a Regency-inspired bergère in XXL format, which he had entirely painted with pointillist patterns borrowed from a painting by Paul Signac. During his lifetime, the designer had already applied this pattern to his Parrot, Anna G and Alessandro M corkscrews, which he designed for the Alessi brand.

Artistic director of the house founded by his great-grandfather, Alberto Alessi had the idea, in 2023, to enrich the collection of Christmas baubles with these three models in mouth-blown glass and decorated with the famous strokes of brush inspired by the painting by Paul Signac, with the agreement of the heirs of Alessandro Mendini. A joyful and referenced tribute which is part of the debauchery of models of all kinds, from the tip of brie to the mini-Taj Mahal to hang on the tree, which we have found for several years at the time of the holidays.

Starry night scents

The night perfume dares everything, that’s even how we recognize it. Starting with the excess of concentrations, which capsizes the senses by upsetting the codes of daytime waters which have so accustomed us to freshness at all costs. Above all, he dares to venture without complexes into the terrain of seduction, playing in a major key with incendiary raw materials: the hypnotic benzoin of Pas ce soir Extrait (BDK), the voluptuous patchouli of Rouge chaotic (Byredo), the dark rose of Eau du soir (Sisley) or the disturbing oud wood of Myriad (Louis Vuitton). With unapologetic sophistication and irreverence, these perfume extracts with an infinite trail are designed to make the magic last until the early morning.

A lively Sémillon

The Pessac-Léognan vines come close to the first homes in the south of the city of Bordeaux. Only independent families hold this appellation, born in 1987. The Château Carbonnieux estate, managed by Eric, Christine and Philibert Perrin – brothers and sister, and fourth generation – is renowned for its white wines. Their latest vintage to arrive on the market, 1741, pays homage to the creator of the place, a certain Dom Galéas: a pure Sémillon, a forgotten grape variety of the region, aged for more than two years. A dazzling nugget. For their part, brothers Armand and Matthieu Cogombles follow in the footsteps of their ancestors at Château Bouscaut. Their magnificent 2019 red is a very contemporary wine, delicate, juicy and velvety, to which we spontaneously subscribe.

Seated class

Famous for the sensually curved furniture he designed throughout the 1960s and 1970s, designer Pierre Paulin (1927-2009) cannot be reduced to this phase. Seven years ago, the Center Pompidou devoted a retrospective to him and looked back at the 1950s, the little-known preorganic period of the young designer, who was passionate at the time about Scandinavia, whose aesthetic he discovered during a stay in Sweden. Pierre Paulin, then recently graduated from the Camondo school of design and interior architecture, appropriated this universe by designing the CM137, a generous, enveloping and very comfortable armchair, composed of a molded polyurethane foam shell, screwed onto a steel tube base. A model that he developed for Thonet France in 1953, for which the Dutch manufacturer Artifort recovered the rights from 1958 and which he renamed Oyster (oyster in English). Six years ago, Benjamin Paulin, son of the designer, set out to recover the rights to the model to have it reissued by Ligne Roset, thus completing the start of a collection put together by the publisher around this period of Pierre’s youth. Paulin, with the Tanis desk and the Daybed sofa.

The Insta moment