Inaugural Paris Design Week proves a success
Casual Living Staff -- Casual Living, 10/12/2011 8:55:00 AM
With 60,000 visitors, more than 100 participating venues and events held each evening of the week in every area of Paris, the first Paris Design Week, held from Sept. 12-18, exceeded expectations.
The success of the event - which was intended as a public celebration of the design phenomenon and organized by SAFI under the aegis of the Office of the French Secretary of State for Commerce, Artisanal Industry and Tourism, with the support of the Île-de-France region - was down to the quality of its programme and the choice, months in advance, of the most favourable dates for distributors.
In collaboration with the MAISON&OBJET trade show and the Journées du Patrimoine, the opportunity was well-chosen for a real-time presentation to the Parisian public, along with many professional visitors from France and abroad who had come to Paris, of all the latest design innovations and trends. The event, which brought together every aspect of design, easily found its target audience thanks to a winning balance between celebration, cultural content and commercial perspectives.
A cross-disciplinary take on creativity and trends across Paris
Furniture, interior design, fashion, gastronomy, art and art of living - under the umbrella of design, the myriad paths of creativity met for Paris Design Week to transform the city into an exhilarating agora of innovation. Showrooms, concept stores, designer workshops, galleries, cultural institutions, hotels and restaurants all played their part to offer a decompartmentalized, accessible and wide-ranging vision of design. By forging links between all creative disciplines, the event was able to act as a unifying force, affirming the dynamism of contemporary creativity in Paris.
A meeting of the general public and the private and public sectors
60,000 visitors were drawn to Paris Design Week, including 10,000 who came to the "now! le off" exhibition at the Cité de la Mode et du Design and 3000 to the "Particule 14" exhibition at the Lieu du Design. International visitors included both professionals and private individuals, as highlighted by the Poltrona Frau group's representative, Goran Topalovitch, who received a stream of visitors to the group's showrooms during Paris Design Week, with a large majority coming from outside France. The event also attracted public sector visitors, notably Frédéric Lefebvre, French Secretary of State for Commerce, Artisanal industry, Small and Medium-sized Businesses, Tourism, Services and Consumption, who attended the inaugural tour of "now! le off", and Jean Paul Huchon, President of the Ile-de-France region, who was present at the private opening of the "Particule 14" exhibition at the Lieu du Design.
The Cité de la Mode et du Design at the heart of the event
The "now! le off" exhibition at the Cité de la Mode et du Design - the most tangible link between the MAISON&OBJET show, which organized the event, and Paris Design Week - encapsulated the spirit of this opening week of meetings and discoveries. "now! le off" proved to be a fantastic springboard for the avant-garde of French design and just the bridge required between young designers and the general public. It featured the acclaimed presentation of the work of 70 young designers, who came to show the public and professionals their work, for which the production rights were often available, an exhibition devoted to research by students at the Ecole de Saint Etienne and the Royal College of Art, offerings by young French production houses (Y'a pas le feu au lac, WA.DE.BE...), pioneering the revival of the design industry, along with the "Dessine moi le Japon" exhibition.
An intense week focused on design
"Paris Design Week transformed Paris - you suddenly felt like the inhabitant of a new capital. Our agendas were ultra-busy, like a New Yorker's, with so many things to see and do... A fantastic energy I never thought I'd see here," said Helena from the "Ich&Kar"duo For one week the question was not what to do, but how to do it. Unmissable events each day:
+ Monday: 2000 people met for the opening of "now! le off" at the Cité de la Mode et du Design on the first day of PARIS DESIGN WEEK, while private openings were in full flow at the Galerie S. Bensimon, Merci and dozens of other venues.
+ Tuesday: The whole microcosm of international design met at the Italian Embassy to hear a talk by Giulio Cappellini, the guest of honour of PARIS DESIGN WEEK with Luca Nichetto, Massimo Iosa Ghini, Piero Lissoni and Ricardo Dalisi. His recounting of the Cappellini brand's industrial and creative adventure was listen to by an audience including Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Claudio Colucci, Noé Duchaufour Lawrance, Christian Ghion, Patrick Norguet, Inga Sempé and many others, all captivated by the ideal synergy between entrepreneurship and design incarnated by Cappellini. But it was also a night for Baccarat, celebrating the launch of its new "L'Harcourt Toujours, les 170 ans d'une icône" heritage exhibition attended by 1500 people.
+ Wednesday: The star venue was Le Lieu du Design, where 1400 people met for the official opening of the "Particule 14" exhibition, a new association of designers, which attracted the attention of the President of the Ile-de-France region, Jean Paul Huchon, who came to visit the exhibition and chatted at length with its hosts. Meanwhile, the VIP Room, the key rallying point of this first PARIS DESIGN WEEK, saw the start of the after-works organized throughout the rest of the week at the initiative of the Bloom Room collective.
+ Thursday: It was difficult to know where to begin Thursday evening. It was a dilemma between the VIP Room and the Cité de la Mode et du Design where the Exquisite Design Award prize-giving was taking place, during the inaugural tour of "now! le off" attended by Frédéric Lefebvre, French Secretary of State for Commerce, Artisanal industry, Small and Medium-sized Businesses, Tourism, Services and Consumption. 3500 people flocked to the exhibition, while the minister chatted informally on how to restore design to its place at the centre of the political debate at a round table attended by Nelly Rodi (founder of the NellyRodi agency), Étienne Cochet (president of Paris Capitale de la Création and CEO of SAFI), Laurent Dutheil (director of Lieu du Design), Laurent Denize d'Estrées (founder of the LHLC Presse group), Daniel Korenbaum (coordinator of "now! le off") and designers including Normal Studio, Mathilde Brétillot, Marie-Christine Dorner and François-Xavier Balléry.
+ Friday: The final working day of the week was marked by an invitation from the VIA and Intramuros magazine to the after-work at the VIP Room, where all the aficionados of design came together for the last evening to see designer François Brument on the decks with DJ Rémy Zakine.
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