Showing posts with label paris design week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paris design week. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
I love finding small companies at Maison et Objet - designers who give their products real time and effort and a hand-made touch. One such designer that I found was Belgian-based lighting designer Sophie Casier. I love the simple but intricate look of her metal and wooden light shades. The three layers of surface - two horizontal and one vertical strip - create interesting plays of light. The light shines against the wall but also sits on the surface of the material, creating a soft halo of indirect lighting. There is also a version of the lights that come with an LED detail that creates long streaks of angular light reflections on the wall. Overall a fantastic, multi-faceted light shade with lots of customisable details in terms of final wood finish or painted colour. From such an original and innovative designer as Sophie, we shall certainly be using these lights in a project as soon as possible!
Description from the Designer:
This concludes our Paris Maison et Objet review - I hope you have enjoyed reading about our lovely finds!
Description from the Designer:
A training in fake marble and restoration of old furniture has brought me to decoration and more particularly to lighting, which lead me to create my first wall light, because of the demand of a client for a hotel in Bruxelles.
Very quickly, the success has been so big that some illegal business copied my model (there is still a legal case going on), but now the model is now fully registered.
Then followed the creation of another model called Birth2, bigger and in different finishes: polished, brushed, aged, matt lacquer or shiny.
Then some models in wood, as a mirror, so one on the left, one on the right, available in many diff ways, equipped with led lighting.
And very soon, a floor lamp and a ceiling lamp are already in the creation, I will let you know...
This concludes our Paris Maison et Objet review - I hope you have enjoyed reading about our lovely finds!
Maison et Objet - Sophie Casier
Sunday, September 22, 2013
As an interior designer, a problem we sometimes have with all the lovely products we see at Maison et Objet is that a lot of companies prefer to wholesale to big retailers. We were pleasantly surprised when we met furniture and accessory company Vical Home at their flexibility towards working with designers and their reasonable minimum order. The range of products is fantastic, something to suit every style and an especially good collection of chairs and lamps!
The good amount of variety is what we like to see - it makes it easy to show the catalogue to our clients and to find enough quantities of products to be able to place an order. Definitely one to keep in mind!
The good amount of variety is what we like to see - it makes it easy to show the catalogue to our clients and to find enough quantities of products to be able to place an order. Definitely one to keep in mind!
Maison et Objet - Vical Home
Friday, September 20, 2013
There was a lot of linen (as we expected) at this year's show so it was quite refreshing to meet the Spanish company MikMax. The thing that got us interested about MikMax was their lovely range of jersey bedlinens in fantastic colours, striped patterns and just a great, high quality. Although MikMax also offered some linen options (who doesn't at the moment), we were just so excited about their jersey range and also their great throw collection. I especially loved the double sided throws!
From their website:
In 2007, following a career as a textile designer, Cristina Montaña set up mikmax,
a textile products collection for interiors.Cristina lives outside Barcelona, surrounded by mediterranean pine trees, in a privileged environment in which she designs her bedding and interior collections using the best cotton and linen fabrics.
the world.
Cristina's concern for the environment and her passion for travel are reflected in the spirit of mikmax. A collection using only the best quality fabrics, subtle colors and textures which have an internal harmony and give any interior a timeless appeal. Cristina's designs suit every taste and age, and will enhance any ambience across
From their website:
In 2007, following a career as a textile designer, Cristina Montaña set up mikmax,
a textile products collection for interiors.Cristina lives outside Barcelona, surrounded by mediterranean pine trees, in a privileged environment in which she designs her bedding and interior collections using the best cotton and linen fabrics.
the world.
Cristina's concern for the environment and her passion for travel are reflected in the spirit of mikmax. A collection using only the best quality fabrics, subtle colors and textures which have an internal harmony and give any interior a timeless appeal. Cristina's designs suit every taste and age, and will enhance any ambience across
Maison et Objet - Mikmax
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
One of my favourite finds this year was a company called 'Shermans' who design beautiful wall art made out of real lotus flowers! Such an innovative idea and totally customisable for every space. One can decide the arrangement of the flowers, the colours (all the same or mixed tones, or completely multicoloured). The flowers can be arranged flat onto a canvas in a size of your choice, or fixed, floating onto a metal frame that stands out from the wall to create a most unusual 3D wall art effect.
We were admiring these creations thinking of all the high-end projects we could be using this on until we heard the price. We were so positively surprised at how affordable these amazing custom creations were that we are excitedly specifying them on projects right now! Hopefully our clients will like them too. ;)
From their website:
Total passion for “well-living with exotic touch“ is, what drives us again and again to find new products, objects and design elements for your living space. We offer you furniture and objects from distant lands – and bring them also directly to your place.
t is no coincidence that you have found us! We have been importing treasures – without equivalents in Germany – from China, India, Indonesia and Thailand for many years. In the remotest corners of Asia we find unique objects, which mostly exist only once – and especially once in Germany.
On more than 1000 m² of modern ambience and a fantastic inner courtyard we present you our vision of a symbiosis between living and working in a modern manner with Asian touch.
Only a stone’s throw away from Munich, Passau, Landshut, Regensburg or Nurnberg you find a dreamlike selection of Asian furniture and objects at our place. For enthusiasts of Asian home decor, who are far away, we have designed this Internet shop. Different from the others you take a closer look.
With our high quality products from Asia your homes do not only get distinctive but also individual and unique.
We were admiring these creations thinking of all the high-end projects we could be using this on until we heard the price. We were so positively surprised at how affordable these amazing custom creations were that we are excitedly specifying them on projects right now! Hopefully our clients will like them too. ;)
From their website:
Total passion for “well-living with exotic touch“ is, what drives us again and again to find new products, objects and design elements for your living space. We offer you furniture and objects from distant lands – and bring them also directly to your place.
t is no coincidence that you have found us! We have been importing treasures – without equivalents in Germany – from China, India, Indonesia and Thailand for many years. In the remotest corners of Asia we find unique objects, which mostly exist only once – and especially once in Germany.
On more than 1000 m² of modern ambience and a fantastic inner courtyard we present you our vision of a symbiosis between living and working in a modern manner with Asian touch.
Only a stone’s throw away from Munich, Passau, Landshut, Regensburg or Nurnberg you find a dreamlike selection of Asian furniture and objects at our place. For enthusiasts of Asian home decor, who are far away, we have designed this Internet shop. Different from the others you take a closer look.
With our high quality products from Asia your homes do not only get distinctive but also individual and unique.
Maison et Objet - Shermans
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
We're so excited to be going to the Maison et Objet trade show in Paris again this year! We can't wait to meet new suppliers and to catch up with our well-known favourites. We're going to be looking for some new e-commerce suppliers as well in order to update our webshop for the new year. :)
As fantastic as Maison et Objet is, it takes a bit of planning to make sure you get the most of the time you have - this year, I am only going to have two days at the show, which means I will have to plan extra carefully or I might miss something important!
If you've been going for years, you might already have your own routine for how to get through the show, but incase you are going for the first or second time, you might benefit from our Maison et Objet tips:
Planning your Visit
We like to plan ahead in terms of what we are going to see - not that we don't aim to get through everything, row by row and hall by hall, but pre-planning the suppliers you'd most like to see gives your visit a bit of structure. I like to divide my suppliers by TYPE - lighting, furniture, bed linens, accessories and so on and choose 5-10 suppliers in each category, in a mix of known suppliers I'd like to re-visit and new suppliers I've never seen but would like to find out more about. I like to be very organised and to organise the suppliers I want to see by HALL and also by STAND, so that when I walk through each hall I know which of my planned suppliers is coming up next.
Survival Guide
In order to get through 2-3 days of full-on walking, meeting suppliers and recording new information, it's not enough to just be organised because if you're not physically and mentally prepared, you won't get through everything you want to see. Therefore, you should carefully plan what to wear, what to carry and what to eat. Rule number one is to be comfortable - bring a change of shoes because your feet will hurt after day one enough to not want to wear the same shoes twice. The weather can be unpredictable and depending on how fast you are walking, you may get too hot - wear layers so that you can quickly get comfortable again.
Also, pack into a suitcase with wheels so in case you don't have time to put your bag into the cloakroom, at least you can wheel it around with you (I mean a cabin size bag, not a 2-week sun holiday). In terms of what to carry, bring a bag with plenty of space that you can fit all the business cards and brochures you pick up. I prefer to bring a backpack so that it doesn't feel too heavy to carry around. Also, in terms of collecting information from suppliers, try to avoid taking home huge catalogues because you will not want to carry these around for the whole day (more on this in 'Recording What you See')! Although there are plenty of places to grab a snack, I like to bring some healthy cereal bars or fruit with me in case I get hungry and just want to carry on.
We like to take lots of photos and tweet what we see (and also it's easy to get lost from your colleagues so we also phone and text each other a lot) - possibly the most important rule of the survival guide is to get yourself a battery booster for your phone, or you might find yourself stranded!
Recording What you See
There is a lot of information to take in at Maison et Objet and recording everything you see and like in an organised way so that you can make sense of the information when you come back can be a bit difficult. We have worked out a way to make the best sense of everything.
1. Photograph the name of the brand you like, then the items you like. As long as you always stick to this, it will be easier to remember what product was from which supplier when you get back.
2. Collect business cards of the people you spoke to so that you have a contact to get in touch with when you need them.
3. Collect brochures or postcards from your preferred suppliers and staple these together - try not to pick up heavy catalogues.
4. Register your details and hand out your business cards to suppliers. You can request that these suppliers send you their full catalogues by post or by PDF after the show.
5. Make a note of which suppliers you spoke to and what you are waiting to hear back from them, or what information you need to send to them.
6. The key questions to ask are price (euros or pounds, trade or retail, including or excluding VAT), lead time, choice of material and colour, can they supply samples and so on.
How to Connect Post-Show
A lot of the organising of information takes place when you are back at the office. We like to organise our business cards and brochures into labeled folders around the office so that when we need to find, for example, a ceramic tile, we look under the tiles folder. We also save a record of our suppliers photos, contact details, catalogues and price lists on a shared folder in Dropbox where everyone can access the data. However, before we do any of this we share all of our information with our colleagues, in case we have picked up some of the same information (which is often the case).
Once everything is organised and recorded, we run through our notes on each supplier and put together a list of who to contact (if you picked up business cards of the reps at the show, you should have plenty of contacts). It's polite to give you suppliers a week or so before you overwhelm them with a barrage of emails and phone calls (they've had a longer week than you have for sure). However, do keep a track of what you are still waiting for and from whom, and if price lists and catalogues don't start showing up, send them a friendly email as a reminder. In fact, it's good to regularly email the contacts you have made so that suppliers remember to keep you updated on their newest products. We like to register to all the newsletters so that we remember the brands we liked and always know what's going on with our favourite suppliers.
I hope that our Paris survival guide will be helpful to you and good luck to all of you going to the show - hope to see you there!
As fantastic as Maison et Objet is, it takes a bit of planning to make sure you get the most of the time you have - this year, I am only going to have two days at the show, which means I will have to plan extra carefully or I might miss something important!
If you've been going for years, you might already have your own routine for how to get through the show, but incase you are going for the first or second time, you might benefit from our Maison et Objet tips:
Planning your Visit
We like to plan ahead in terms of what we are going to see - not that we don't aim to get through everything, row by row and hall by hall, but pre-planning the suppliers you'd most like to see gives your visit a bit of structure. I like to divide my suppliers by TYPE - lighting, furniture, bed linens, accessories and so on and choose 5-10 suppliers in each category, in a mix of known suppliers I'd like to re-visit and new suppliers I've never seen but would like to find out more about. I like to be very organised and to organise the suppliers I want to see by HALL and also by STAND, so that when I walk through each hall I know which of my planned suppliers is coming up next.
Survival Guide
In order to get through 2-3 days of full-on walking, meeting suppliers and recording new information, it's not enough to just be organised because if you're not physically and mentally prepared, you won't get through everything you want to see. Therefore, you should carefully plan what to wear, what to carry and what to eat. Rule number one is to be comfortable - bring a change of shoes because your feet will hurt after day one enough to not want to wear the same shoes twice. The weather can be unpredictable and depending on how fast you are walking, you may get too hot - wear layers so that you can quickly get comfortable again.
Also, pack into a suitcase with wheels so in case you don't have time to put your bag into the cloakroom, at least you can wheel it around with you (I mean a cabin size bag, not a 2-week sun holiday). In terms of what to carry, bring a bag with plenty of space that you can fit all the business cards and brochures you pick up. I prefer to bring a backpack so that it doesn't feel too heavy to carry around. Also, in terms of collecting information from suppliers, try to avoid taking home huge catalogues because you will not want to carry these around for the whole day (more on this in 'Recording What you See')! Although there are plenty of places to grab a snack, I like to bring some healthy cereal bars or fruit with me in case I get hungry and just want to carry on.
We like to take lots of photos and tweet what we see (and also it's easy to get lost from your colleagues so we also phone and text each other a lot) - possibly the most important rule of the survival guide is to get yourself a battery booster for your phone, or you might find yourself stranded!
Recording What you See
There is a lot of information to take in at Maison et Objet and recording everything you see and like in an organised way so that you can make sense of the information when you come back can be a bit difficult. We have worked out a way to make the best sense of everything.
1. Photograph the name of the brand you like, then the items you like. As long as you always stick to this, it will be easier to remember what product was from which supplier when you get back.
2. Collect business cards of the people you spoke to so that you have a contact to get in touch with when you need them.
3. Collect brochures or postcards from your preferred suppliers and staple these together - try not to pick up heavy catalogues.
4. Register your details and hand out your business cards to suppliers. You can request that these suppliers send you their full catalogues by post or by PDF after the show.
5. Make a note of which suppliers you spoke to and what you are waiting to hear back from them, or what information you need to send to them.
6. The key questions to ask are price (euros or pounds, trade or retail, including or excluding VAT), lead time, choice of material and colour, can they supply samples and so on.
How to Connect Post-Show
A lot of the organising of information takes place when you are back at the office. We like to organise our business cards and brochures into labeled folders around the office so that when we need to find, for example, a ceramic tile, we look under the tiles folder. We also save a record of our suppliers photos, contact details, catalogues and price lists on a shared folder in Dropbox where everyone can access the data. However, before we do any of this we share all of our information with our colleagues, in case we have picked up some of the same information (which is often the case).
Once everything is organised and recorded, we run through our notes on each supplier and put together a list of who to contact (if you picked up business cards of the reps at the show, you should have plenty of contacts). It's polite to give you suppliers a week or so before you overwhelm them with a barrage of emails and phone calls (they've had a longer week than you have for sure). However, do keep a track of what you are still waiting for and from whom, and if price lists and catalogues don't start showing up, send them a friendly email as a reminder. In fact, it's good to regularly email the contacts you have made so that suppliers remember to keep you updated on their newest products. We like to register to all the newsletters so that we remember the brands we liked and always know what's going on with our favourite suppliers.
I hope that our Paris survival guide will be helpful to you and good luck to all of you going to the show - hope to see you there!
A Guide to Paris - Maison et Objet
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
