My Five Favorite Designs from Maison et Objet – Paris

I’ve just returned from the amazing Maison et Objet in Paris, Europe’s biggest design show, where design houses from all over Europe fill 8 huge halls with their latest inventions and collections.  From the hundreds of beautiful products I saw I’ve pulled together my top five fabulosities -- the designs that really took my breath away:

#1 The Big Bang Chandelier from Blackbody

Europe is farther ahead than we are with LED technology and there were fabulous efficiency lighting solutions all over the show.  My favorites were from  Blackbody, a company in France that is implementing a new Organic LED or OLED technology.  OLED allows large surfaces of light to be created in luminous planes, and the light that each pane of this candelier emits is unlike anything we’re used to.  You can read by the light of the Big Bang chandelier – but you can also look directly at the light without squinting. It’s simply amazing and it had everyone talking in Europe.

#2 Smoon Lantern from Beau et Bien

The French never fail to seduce us with their charm, and the Smoon lantern from Beau et Bien is a case in point.  Using efficient, battery operated LED technology, Beau et Bien has created a lightweight, indoor-outdoor, organically shaped lantern called the Smoon. It is carried from place to place by the ring at the top and is used singly or in groups to light a dining table, a walkway – whatever.  As with the Blackbody chandelier, the light is soft but intense.  To make us swoon over the Smoon, Beau et Bien perches a white porcelain bird atop each lantern, sitting inside the handle-ring.  Steve Jobs would have approved – there is no on/off switch on the Smoon.  Give it a gentle tap to turn it on and tap it again for off.

#3 Waterproof Art Panels from Alex Turco

Showers are never boring when they’re lined with gorgeous glass art panels from Alex Turco.  They showed this enlarged geode at the show but they offer a large portfolio of beautiful and seductive images in styles that fit any home with a contemporary edge.  Their floor-to-ceiling image of timber bamboo in vivid green would make for a particularly fabulous shower.

#4 Italian Kitchen Display

Italian design is in a category of its own.  Every single Italian company at the show had incredible panache and none more so than Minacciolo, providers of high style kitchen cabinetry and appliances.  Minacciolo stacked flats of tomatoes to create the back wall of their display and the result was so dramatic that they had groups of attendees photographing the booth continuously.  Over their amazing stove and cabinetry they hung lighting made from aluminum pots.  The cabinets sported water- and stain-resistant leather counters, along with numerous inventive features.  But it was their display that got me.

#5 Wall Coverings from Wall&Deco, srl

Another example of Italian style was the collection of wall coverings from Wall&Deco.  You provide the dimensions of your wall and Wall&Deco provides the wall covering to fit.  It ships in panels that the installer puts together, and the play of scale and imagery was awesome.  Wall&Deco offers an entire catalogue of images.  The shadowed image of this Edwardian gentleman was magical on the large wall at the show.  It’s soft enough to be easy to live with despite its mass scale.