Milou Ket reports from Paris

Milou Ket

She travels the globe extensively soaking up the design world and seeking inspiration to formulate her much-anticipated trend reports.

Internationally acclaimed trend forecaster, Milou Ket – a regular at Decoration + Design seminar series – compiled this exclusive report for Design Online capturing the top trends and much-loved moments from MAISON&OBJET (her favourite fair) and Premiere Vision in Paris, to the 100% Design festival in London.

Enjoy!

POSTCARD from PARIS:

September has been a busy month: first I spent four days in Paris visiting the MAISON&OBJET and seeing all the shops.

Later this month, I was in Paris again to visit the fabric fair, Premiere Vision, then it was onto London to visit the 100% design. The first week of September was dedicated to viewing as many interiors as possible, and any related products.

One of my favorite shops is Merci at the Avenue Beaumarchais. It is a concept store and every time I visit it is featuring another theme. This time the emphasis was on materials, so in the middle on the ground floor there was an exhibition on special, interesting material experiments. I really loved the big tubs with grading of different colours. But there were also other materials, such as a composite of bamboo used for household products, plates and jars.

Interior of Merci shop at Avenue Beaumarchais in Paris.

Washed linen, bamboo, natural lighting, fur and fragile porcelain products at Merci.

The interior of the nice concept store “Merci”, a nice mix of relaxed furniture.

In the cellar they show all kinds of smart, sustainable products for lighting, cooking, the kitchen, for home farming and gardening. There is a restaurant and a nice garden. Often they show nice displays on the walls. This time there was a machine to demonstrate “slow manufacturing” of light elements. Their interior department shows a relaxed atmosphere, with different chairs, huge glass bottles, interesting lighting, and beautiful off-white or coloured (bed)linen.

Last time, Merci had giant striking stickers of French doors by “Maison Margiela”, now there were more wallpapers by Piet Boon and Piet Hein Eek with pictures of concrete and recycled wood. Every time there is a display of beautiful coloured washed bed linens in exciting colours.

The Alba vase

GRADING OF COLOUR: These wonderful, coloured vases were for sale at the shop of Merci in Paris. They are called the “Alba Vase”, made of polyethylene, with a technique called “rotomoulage”, that permits different transparencies and densities. It it a hand made design by Massimiliano Adam from Italy.

Beautiful colourful bedlinen at Merci in Paris

Some shops have interesting window displays because of Paris Design Week, like the LaFayette department store. The gifts and small decorative products at the ground floor are always nice to see. There were also interesting trompe l’oeil effects, for instance tone-on-tone bookcases, but also photorealistic animals, glued on board.

The Pylone stand is always fun and very colourful. New was the display by Dutch company Poll’s Potten with many decorative products such as vases. The table linen by Jacquards de France, always traditional and nice to see and I also enjoyed seeing their lighting department. Interesting plates with photorealistic prints of folded hands by porcelain manufacturer Bernardaud from Limoges.

I also went to visit the Home departments of Le Printemps. I love their “shop in the shop” with tea products by Marriage Freres, a French gourmet tea company. The view from the rooftop of Le Printemps is breathtaking. Lots of golden pinnacles around.

The exciting interior of the Hèrmes shop in St. Germain, situated in an restored swimming pool from the 1930s.

The interior of the Hèrmes shop in Paris at the Rue de Sèvres in St Germain, Paris. Three nine metre high wooden pavilions are made of ash laths, each housing the Hermes collection.

During the weekend I visited MAISON&OBJET, the wonderful interior fair in Paris, my favourite fair. One of the things I usually visit first is the trend area, because it gives a good overview of the trends, but they moved the area this time to a different hall. A lot of people missed it, because it was not properly communicated.

The MAISON&OBJET showcased three trends around the Theme “Energies”; optimism, to recharge the batteries:

– One on “Illumination” by Elisabeth Leriche, which was very beautiful and innovative, on new technical solutions with lights, prisms, coloured glass, mirrors, and halo’s.

– The second one was by Francois Bernard called “Psychotropia”, with lots of visual illusions, op-art effects, other dimensions, and surrealism. Also the work of Fornasetti was an important part of the presentation.

– Vincent Gregoire for Nelly Rodi showed a theme called “Funt@sy”, with choc and chic, provocative and humorous ideas.

At all fairs I have seen a comeback of colour, from very colourful to accents, but also in refined executions.

Click on each circle below for Milou’s interpretation of each image.

The booth of Ibride from France shows animals and antique influences with trays with portraits.

Sustainable products from German company Guaxs, made of glass, porcelain and wood.

A still life at Ibride from France, with portraits in an unusual manner.

Beautiful refined porcelain from the collection of Bodo Sperlein in London, available in neutral/pink, but also in jade and yellow.

Metallic containers by Pulpo in Germany, a design by Sebastian Herkner at Maison & Objet.

Light weight lamps made of transparent tissue paper at MAISON&OBJET.

Lighting by Karakot from the Philipines

Led wallpaper with Led’s and Swarovski crystals by Meystyle from London. They were the first company with these LED embedded products since 2004.

Indoor and outdoor products, combining green grasses and soft yellow by Sempre from Belgium.

Italian home-accessories brand Somma had been making upscale linen and decorative textiles for over a century. Here their stand at the MAISON&OBJET.

Golden cages at the booth of Haans Lifestyle.

Gardening and home farming is a big trend. Bacsac offers bags, that can be used indoor and outdoor. “Nature in a bag” as an innovative alternative to pots. They are easy to transport.

Decoration with bottles against a handcrafted, luxurious background with shells, mother of pearl etc. by DK Home from the Netherlands.

A composition of blues and greens at DK Home from the Netherlands, with exotic and luxurious materials such as from shells, mother of pearl etc.

Cubic modular bookcases by Cubit at the Maison & Objet, available in 25 different formats, and 8 different depths to match books and cd’s. Available in many colours, they can be stacked or hung because of a unique system.