Panache

The originality of French Design may be its ingeniousness but it also maintains a vision of elegance and culture. For French designers, panache means playing with codes in pertinent - and impertinent - ways. Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance took inspiration from the hundred-year-old parasol pines of Villa Borghese in Rome to design an ultra-contemporary sofa (Borghese/La Chance). Pierre Charrié and Julien Vermeulen whimsically combined an ostrich feather with a marble base (Nuto for the Mica gallery) and Elise Fouin added subtle, tonal variations in concentric circles to her Clouds rugs. And Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, the exhibition’s scenographer and multi-faceted designer is also present with two kissing angels on the back of a garden chair (Ange for Fermob).