Luxury redefined
A new exhibition at this month’s Maison&objet Paris makes us question what counts as luxury today and how we can use this to enhance our lives
a swe’ve reassessed what luxury means to us over the past year – traversing from the copiously conspicuous to the sustainably conscientious – it makes sense that Maison&objet would invite The Invisible Collection this month (20-24 January) to spotlight the rising designers who they feel best represent what ‘new luxury’ means to us today.
Collaborating with artistic scenographer and interior designer Émilie Bonaventure, The Invisible Collection, founded by long-time friends Anna Zaoui and Isabelle Dubern-mallevays in 2016, will showcase almost 40 young and emerging talents. The cast includes rising French designers such as Charlotte Biltgen, Studioparisien and Maison Intègre and our very own Brit stars Campbell-rey and architect duo Atelier Pendhapa.
‘For me, the “new luxury” is about taking the time to buy fewer but better pieces,’ enthuses Emilie, ‘and trying to figure out who and what are the iconic designs of tomorrow based on the quality of materials and the attention to detail, and a certain timelessness – more than just looking for the trendy wow factor.’ So here, they have chosen designers creating fresh designs, drawing a little on the past, but with their eye firmly on the future.
‘What I love about our designers is they don’t copy the past, they reinterpret it and push it forward,’ says Anna. For example, with London-based designer Rebecca Korner’s whimsical Lagoon table and its layers of richly hued selenite intimating melting pools of ice cream, ‘her pieces are almost classic, but revisited with colour and happiness,’ says Anna.
It’s an ethos that feels perfectly in tune with how we want to live now – creating homes that will feel unique and individual through pieces that feel a little (or a lot) out of the ordinary, pieces imbued with longevity and steeped in the narrative of not only the person who designed or made them, but also reflecting a part of ourselves – about who we are and what we love.
It’s certainly what Anna and Isabelle have long championed since starting The Invisible Collection on the premise of seeking out interesting, intriguing works by architects, artists and interior designers that are usually only custom-made and otherwise never seen on the high street or in major furniture showrooms.
“The term ‘new luxury’ is about taking the time to buy fewer but better pieces”
‘It’s a very short circuit between the artisan, the interior designer and us, and as everything is made to order, there is no waste at all,’ enthuses Isabelle about this sustainable approach.
In the ‘new luxury’, this touch of the handmade is all-important, but it needn’t require a second mortgage. For Sarah Watson, founder of bathroom specialist Balineum, investing in just 20 beautiful hand-glazed tiles to go around a fireplace can bring
‘depth and nuance to a space that you just wouldn’t get with something machine made,’ she says. Designers like Sophie Ashby regularly come to Sarah to help translate mural designs by artists like Anna Glover into tiles to fill entire walls, but Sarah says it’s just as fun to buy one tile featuring a hand-painted design by contemporary artist Wayne Pate and ‘hang it like a work of art’.
Introducing art via other mediums, such as filling a wall with hand-painted plates or commissioning a mural – as interior designer Bryan O’sullivan has done recently with British artist Annie Morris in The Painter’s Room bar at Claridge’s – can instantly elevate a room. Or try the wallpaper collections by new brand Dado, which feature works by the artist Matthew Burrows and cyanotype prints by Jo de Pear, or Christopher Farr’s recent translation of five works by the late abstract painter Sandra Blow onto grass paper.
The rapidly rising interest in craft reflects the new luxury’s focus on sustainability. ‘Millennial collectors are currently the highest spenders in the market, looking to purchase with integrity, focusing on provenance, authenticity, the handmade and the artisan,’ says Isobel Dennis, director of Collect contemporary craft and design fair, which opens next month at Somerset House (23-27 February).
But investing in craft can be as simple as an exquisitely handturned wooden bowl by Lancastrian designer Alexander de Vol, available at The New Craftsmen, for holding your keys on the hall table, or a painted plate from Skye Mcalpine’s new Tavola homeware collection, hand-finished by artisans near Venice. Even on the high street Arket has worked with young Swedish artist and illustrator Linnéa Andersson on a collection of graphic motifs for blankets, which are then made by the prestigious centuries-old Swedish weavers Klippan using traditional Nordic craft techniques.
Ultimately, the essence of a room that feels distinctive and personal is all in the combination of old and new, the fun and the precious. ‘Our motto is always to be daring and passionate,’ assert Anna and Isabelle. ‘We are always surprised and happy to see how our clients mix pieces together to create their own story.’