20 highlights of Paris Design Week

Paris lights-up with citywide celebrations of design this month – a whirlwind of previews, exhibitions and showcases conjured by the trade fair Maison&Objet and Déco Off, the fabrics, wallcoverings and trimmings event spanning stores and galleries (from 18 to 22 January). It’s a place to lose yourself in pattern and print, get a first glimpse of French and international design, and take in the city’s antique troves and markets en route. Here’s our tour of the highlights. . .

GP & J Baker x Kit Kemp Design Studio

Designer and hotelier Kit Kemp’s first collaboration with British fabric and wallpaper house GP & J Baker transmutes her eclectic style into colour-saturated prints, wallpapers, artisanal stripes and embroideries (alongside a plain linen). Previewed at GP & J Baker’s Rue du Mail showroom, the collection’s eye-catcher is Front Row, a patchwork-like print originally envisaged as a decor for Kemp’s trendy Tribeca outpost the Warren Street Hotel, inspired by the handicrafts of the Indian Gujariti whom Kemp describes as “masters of the art”. Equally evocative is Robina’s Dinner Party, a design reinterpreting ceramicist Robina Jack’s handpainted folkloric plates surrounded by intricate patterns. More traditional pastoral scenes ground Knight’s Tale, an original 1920s GP & J Baker design refreshed in modern colour, while Kemp’s Stripes collection includes the exuberant woven designs Runaway and Wild One. There are three offerings for embroidery lovers: Backdrop, a playful design on plain linen, the chunky embroidery of Spin-Off, and Ring Road, a design of loosely painted coiled lines.

Loro Piana

Personalisation is key to the brand’s 2024 interiors collection, which will be presented at its temporary space on Rue des Saints-Pères. Find table dressings ready to adorn with embroidery, openwork and contrasting edging. There is also a bed collection in organic cotton and linen, and in cotton and cashmere, that can be lavishly layered with a queen-size cashmere blanket edged in a choice of cashmere chevron ribbon, plus the Sils rug in New Zealand wool, handwoven on looms to custom sizes.

Costes x Liaigre

The maison’s first capsule collection with the hip French hotel brand Costes will be unveiled at its flagship store on rue du Faubourg St-Honoré. Five pieces – ranging from a stool to seating and lighting – pay homage to Christian Liaigre’s décor at Hôtel Costes, the A-list haunt on Rue Saint Honoré.

Lelièvre and Quenin 1865

The French heritage fabric house is presenting its Quenin 1865 brand – the revival of a historic French company established in 1865 during Lyon’s silk-industry boom. Lelièvre bought the Quenin factory in 1973, gaining access to its centuries-old expertise and archive, which was explored by artistic director Ingrid Lager, sparking new designs and a standalone collection of fabrics, wallpapers and rugs, which gets its first outing in Paris at the Lelièvre showroom on Rue du Mail. Expect to see jacquards, prints, embroideries, stripes, indienne designs and damasks with oversized motifs and new colours, which can be mixed and matched to create new combinations.

Lemon

New designs by South African designer Yaniv Chen will debut alongside existing Lemon pieces in an immersive salon-style space at Maison&Objet. The ensemble conveys a sense of nostalgia: traditional, familiar archetypes are re-envisaged as the Rambling Chair, the Park Nightstand and the Drapery Table – a one-off piece crafted in Italy from a single block of Travertine.

1838 Wallcoverings x Victoria and Albert Museum

Nine wallpaper patterns in more than 30 colourways segue “from the grandeur of Pineapple to the intricacy of Calico Shell and the opulence of Walter Crane’s classic designs,” in a collection inspired by woodblock prints, watercolour sketches and vintage textiles from the London museum’s hallowed archive. Look out for the pop-up at Galerie Hug, on Rue de l’Échaudé, and the striking Garland of Rāgini mural: a ragamala painting from the 1700s in which elements of the original watercolour have been carefully altered, redrawn and reproduced.

Magic Circus Éditions

Marie-Lise Féry’s playful designs will catch the eye at Maison&Objet. Her Big Chain 01 – Empoli pendant light is one jaw dropper. “I wanted to plunge the viewer into the spellbinding architecture of ancestral homes illuminated by lanterns, levitating in space like an enchanted acrobat,” she says of the glass globes suspended on chunky metal chains. Her 36-arm Sputnik-style chandelier also hangs from an industrial-style chain, and expect to see sleek Candy Eye wall lamps peeking from surfaces in metal and pastel-hued opal glass. The brand’s furniture is equally inventive: there’s a desk-shelf taking the form of floor-to-ceiling poles intersected by shelves; and pedestals “evoking the delicate refinement of a chess pawn”.

Invisible Collection

The online design gallery teams up with Mobilier National, the institution promoting French decorative arts, for the second consecutive year during Design Week. Together they are presenting a limited edition of contemporary furniture acquired by Mobilier National as part of its 2023 Campagne d’Acquisition (an initiative in which it purchases select pieces from makers for its collection, which highlights exemplary French design) at an exhibition by the artist Hamrei at Féau & Cie, the historic French boiserie specialist on Rue Laugier. The limited edition will be available at the Invisible Collection following the exhibition.

Ligne Roset 

The French purveyor of contemporary design introduces 18 re-edited pieces by the late designer Pierre Guariche, an important figure of French midcentury design best known for lighting and furniture, manufactured by the French maker Cinna. Get a sneak peek at the contemporary art gallery Galerie Italienne on Rue du Louvre.

De La Espada

Head to the contemporary art gallery Amelie Maison d’Art on rue Séguier to peruse designs by French designer Anthony Guerrée, alongside a curated collection of abstract art. The exhibition, which runs until 18 March, will evoke “the feel of home” with De La Espada furniture taking visitors from the dining room to the living room and home office. Guerrée is excited to be showcasing his sculptural creations in his hometown – and at his favourite Parisian art gallery. “It has profound significance as it blurs the traditional boundaries between art and design,” he says.

De Gournay

One of the finest ages of Japanese painting (the Edo period, from around 1615 to 1868) inspires handpainted designs that transport to a land of arching willow trees on gilded grounds, morning glory vines trailing on bamboo fences, and harvest moons glowing against midnight blue skies. The new collection named Byōbu, on show at the brand’s apartment on rue des Saints-Pères until 6pm daily during the festival, pays homage to Japan’s traditional folding screens adorned with scenes of land, sky and seascapes. De Gournay’s own artists use many of the same techniques through brushstroke and colour.

Christie’s

Highlights from the oeuvre of Studio Ymer&Malta will be exhibited at the auctioneers on Avenue Matignon. The art furniture house is the brainchild of designer Valérie Maltaverne, who works with designers and craftsmen to produce limited editions utilising traditional decorative arts techniques. Look out for Fallen Tree, a wooden bench that appears to sprout from the limbs of a tree, developed with Benjamin Graindorge; the Blister bench in folded leather by Normal Studio and the metal-pierced Belle de Nuit electric lamp developed with Océane Delain in porcelain bisque, which is part of a collection commissioned by The Noguchi Museum.

Little Greene

A slice of British heritage on Rue Bonaparte, the showroom will present the brand’s fourth iteration of National Trust Papers – designs born of original patterns found in National Trust properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The eight-strong ensemble (which includes a design from the paint and wallpaper manufacturer’s own archive) spans flocks of exotic birds to florals and large-scale tropical murals, refreshed in 42 colourways.

Delcourt Collection and Textiles

Catch the latest pieces from French designer Christophe Delcourt and his team at his showroom on Rue de Babylone. The designer’s love of wood is explored through simple lines: his Ode chair references the tradition of workshop chairs with its generously rounded back and an inverted V-style base, while the archetypal straw-backed chair is elegantly reinterpreted in his Ari design. A looser, more organic approach defines the Nin console table, which features a cathedral base of hollowed-out wood in swooping curves.

Haute-Facture

Haute-Facture – a group of artisans belonging to l’Ameublement Français, the association promoting furniture and interior manufacturing in the decorative arts – has created an “artistic and sensory” tour of four spaces in the city’s 6th arrondissement. At the Quatre Saisons showroom at Galerie Pouenat (the wrought-iron artisans on 22 bis Passage Dauphine), tapestry expert Robert Four, art lacquerware specialist Atelier Midavaine and curio designer Objet de Curiosité will explore the influence of nature on design through texture, colour and material. A short walk away at Galerie Alain Ellouz (a specialist in alabaster and rock crystal on Quai des Grands Augustins) there’s “Matières Vivantes”, an ode to noble materials created with cabinetmaker Taillardat and Atelier Midavaine. Over at the showroom of furniture maker Duvivier Canapés on Rue Mazarine, the cosmos informs Constellation, an installation conceived with the bronze specialist Tisserant and Objet de Curiosité. The final stop is Jardin Imaginaire, a scenography at Volevatch on Rue Bonaparte, where everyday objects are placed in a “dreamlike” setting.

Arte

The brand’s showroom on Rue de l’Abbaye will be a portal to Hawaii through new wallpapers inlaid or embroidered with rattan and raffia. The selection includes Kailua, a scene of swaying palms on a background of bark cloth; and Mauna, a textural swathe of rattan laid by hand to create a design reproduced digitally in 10 colours.

Toyine Sellers x Thierry Lemaire

Textile artist Sellers (founder of French atelier Toyine) and French architect and designer Lemaire will unveil a collaboration at Maison&Objet of four furniture pieces alongside custom-made curtains and a wall covering installation – each a confluence of the architect’s comfortable but refined aesthetic and the artist’s innovative weaves.

Schumacher

A clutch of new designs will be unveiled at the brand’s Rue Jacob showroom. Womenswear designer Trina Turk brings her bold, colourful vision to her latest indoor-outdoor collection for the fabric and wallpaper house, while long-term collaborator designer Celerie Kemble has produced a collection of textiles and wallpapers spanning floral motifs and faux tortoiseshell, with fabrics, trims, and wallpaper patterns that can be layered. There’s also a collaboration with Drusus Tabor, the New York–based company known for original block-printed textiles and painterly patterns by artist and textile designer Caroline Z Hurley.

Ozone

Lighting innovators Étienne Gounot and Eric Jahnke will present Furtiv, their latest collaboration with architects Gaelle Lauriot-Prévost and Dominique Perrault on January 17, at Laffanour/Galerie Downtown on Rue de Seine. The simple forms convey architectural rigour and a “constructivist manifesto” inspired by the lamps designed for the reading-rooms of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Sanderson Design Group

Look for the brand’s Lightshades installation illuminating the Rue du Mail en route to its store, where theatrical Sanderson x Disney Home drapes swathe the exterior, celebrating its ongoing collaboration with the media giant, based on original commissions of wallpaper from 1928 and the mid 1930s. There is a whisper that fashion designer Giles Deacon has collaborated in a new offering with Sanderson, while Sanderson’s sister brands also have new designs: Zoffany has new collections of damasks, stripes, and moire; Harlequin is collaborating with designer Sophie Robinson and Clarke & Clarke with Breegan Jane.