How did you get involved in the design industry?
I have always been curious of the world that surrounds me. Design has quickly become one of the ways to satisfy this curiosity. I’ve spent my childhood drawing collections of clothes, dreaming about being the new Issey Miyake, the next Hussein Chalayan or Christian Lacroix. I had decided at the time that I would become a fashion designer. That’s why I went for a foundation course at Esaa Duperré, a school in Paris that specializes in fashion and textile design. But I soon realized during this period that the world of textile was even more fascinating than fashion: a wider, more open-minded and versatile field that encourages much more dialogue with other disciplines.

You just graduated from Central Saint Martins in London. How was it?
It was a fantastic period to think outside the box, to be at the forefront of design, allowing me to develop innovative concepts in a challenging but supportive atmosphere. It was an incredible chance to move my work to another scale, and developing an extremely personal approach, to meet amazing inspiring people. Now I feel I have achieved one cycle and I feel fully armed for the next round.

Tell me about your latest project, [Extra]ordinary Furniture.
[Extra]ordinary furniture is a project all about imagining the future of the home and how to make it more poetic, emotionally and ecologically durable; how to reintroduce emotion and meaning into the ordinary in order to go beyond the worldwide standardization of objects. I have always been interested in the stereotyping and loss of diversity of our environments, the heritage of mass-production and the desire for democratization.

But maybe even more important, objects’ loss of meaning is also at the origin of the current ecological crisis, as Jonathan Chapman demonstrated in his book, “Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences and Empathy Objects” fail to install a long-term relationship with the user by lack of meaning. Because they can’t sustain empathy with us, we quickly replace them for another, which nurtures the loop of consumption and waste production. This makes explicit why this project is about to materialize new types of objects, capable of supporting deeper, more meaningful relationship with their user. This reflection has lead the development of evolving furniture for domestic experience, including [Extra]ordinary Wallpapers, a collection of wallpapers to sculpt and Mille-Feuille table, a table to be peeled away, layer after layer.

What led you to this project?
This project has been influenced a lot by the frame of this particular master and all the meeting and discussion it has generated, especially regarding the growing concern for sustainability matter. But everything that surrounds me, that moves me is a source of inspiration: a detail of architecture, a whispered word, a piece of furniture, an emergent technology or an old pattern. This project in particular owes a lot to my discovery of British and Victorian domestic interiors and the mundane everyday objects that disappear under the veil of familiarity. But it is not only about visuals; language and wordplay are probably my first way to generate ideas.

What do you think of the design industry?
I think the design industry is at a crucial time now. We, as designers, have the possibility to completely re-shape the perspective of the current industry. We have the incredible chance to re-design the world, in a more meaningful, sustainable way. It is an enormous challenge, a fantastic task and at the same a difficult responsibility. Some companies are already on the move but I am afraid it is not the majority yet. I wish things could move faster because it is an urgent and crucial matter; environmental concerns should absolutely not be trend but a key issue for everybody.

How does your [Extra]ordinary furniture fit into this industry?
[Extra]ordinary furniture is a reflection on the new ways of manufacturing and how to get out of standardization. I strongly believe in the possibilities opened by the idea of ‘industrial craft’, and the potential of rapid-manufacturing. Both allow for the production of unique objects through industrial processes, gathering the idea of craft: designing objects by the individual for the individual, as well as the mechanical replication of identical objects on a massive scale. In that sense, this project explores the potential of laser-cutting techniques, a fantastic tool for highly personalized design.

What is your previous work like?
What is driving me is the potential of textiles to redefining our relationship to the home. Constellation Wallpaper, designed in partnership with Philips Design, fully illustrates this approach. It is a prospective research aiming at mapping the future of our habitat. It can be sum-up as an energy storage wallpaper, in other words, a interactive wallpaper that produces and stores electricity than to photovoltaic technologies embedded in its surface. Other projects directly address sustainable concerns, like the World as a Map project, a collection of eco-conscious wallpapers. Téléscop[age], a collection of complements for the chair was already a reflection on mass-production and the ways to give back emotional and creative values to mass-produced items.

What’s up next for you?
I want to push the boundaries of textile one step further as well as considering research collaboration around prospective projects for the future of the home. I’ve applied for a PhD in Tectonic Textiles, the fruit of the collaboration between the Textile Future Research Group in London and CITA, the Center for Information Technologies and Architecture in Denmark. So I am looking forward to hear from them!

What would be the ideal future for you?
I would love to be involved in the textile research field, in particular this PhD because I am dreaming of textiles’ power. To what extent evolving materials, responsive textiles and other “super-surfaces” will change our live, our habits and our environment? Will the house of the future – inhabited by fabrics that fold, expand and react to our moods – become true?