Paris Match

The designs at this year’s Maison & Objet in Paris were impressive, even to a jetlagged viewer.

Naivety may be defined as an unquestioning exuberance that I could tackle Maison & Objet, one of the largest interiors trade fairs in the world, straight off a sleepless 30-hour flight.
Perhaps even well-rested, the expansive halls would seem intimidating but bleary-eyed and fragile, the never-ending aisles seemed particularly daunting on that first day. By the third day, however, I knew the lay of the land, I knew how each hall segued into the next, and I could see immediately what was worth pausing at and what was worth hurrying past. That may sound slapdash, but when there are floods of football pitch-sized sections all showcasing air fragrances or Rococo-styled cots, you realise that Maison & Objet caters for all tastes and styles, not just new, contemporary product design. The upside of this floodgate is that your eye quickly gets adept at honing in on the good, the beautiful and the interesting. Some of the highlights of which we’ve shown you here.

The two halls I concentrated on were Design Now and Maison Objet Outdoor, though I did do the sweep through every other hall, occasionally catching a highlight like some stunningly surreal Rosenthal ceramic work in the Tableware section or refurbished vintage set lights in Ethnic Chic.
I was especially impressed with new offerings of outdoor furniture. Bright colours, modern weaving and enlarged dramatic shapes were trends that would suit our casual Antipodean summer. In Design Now, many of the designs on show were not new releases, but the benefit was not so much any singular brand-new product but rather that it was a survey of product design at this time – what designers are thinking about, what consumers are looking for, new materials, and trends. Here, again, colour is everywhere. Irony and wit are still getting laughs and a rethink of materials, like delicate porcelain shaped into heavy jewellery chain links or reworkings of familiar forms in new ways like a swing as a chair, are all popular sources of inspiration. Nicole Stock