Humor, glamour and hypnosis: the latest trends from Paris.

From Cologne, the design caravan moves on to Paris. At the furnishing fair Maison & Objet and the textile show Déco Off taking place in parallel in the showrooms of Saint-Germain, no heavyweight facts are negotiated. It's about accessories, surfaces, colors and patterns: precisely what determines the atmosphere of a room. The main ingredients: Humor, glamour and the ability to hypnotize.

Decoration is a tricky word. What French interpret as a fine way of life, Germans take as a savage form of insult. Decorators decorate shop windows, not homes, Teutonic designers immediately think. But Déco in French stands for living. And so, of course, the back door is open to the decorative and opulent, or rather, it is simply part of the design. And so the Paris furnishing fair Maison & Objet resembles a huge potpourri in which things mix. Established design manufacturers stand booth to booth with young brands and also those that provide for stylistic species richness.

Rhythm and dynamics
Of course, Art Deco plays an important role on the Seine - the French counter-answer to Bauhaus Modernism, so to speak. ENOstudio from Paris shows the wall lamp Galon by Guillaume Delvigne, which protrudes into the room as a matte black, chromed or brass-colored steel bracket. The light source is hidden by black fringes hanging down from the bracket, reminiscent of flowing evening gowns in the jazz clubs of the twenties.

Exotic feeling is brought in by Spanish brand Houtique through a collaboration with design studio Masquespacio. The fringed lamp Wink, shown as a prototype in 2017, has now grown into an entire collection that includes the armchair Mambo, the pouf Chachachà and a bar stool of the same name. They, too, are adorned by fringes in bright colors that inevitably put you in a good mood and create rhythm and dynamism in your home four walls. Or as the manufacturer puts it, "There's no sorrow, there's no sadness, there's no decay." The rose-colored glasses become a furnishing strategy.

Soft as dough
Humorous continues at the stand of Seletti. With the Street Lamp Studio Job have taken up the archetype of a 19th century cast iron gas lantern and bent it to the side in imitation of Achille Castiglioni's famous Arcolamp - almost as if the metal base had become as soft as play-doh under the influence of great heat and simply given way. Added is a cordless, compact table version of the lamp, which cuts a perfect figure especially on classic Parisian bistro tables and their cast-iron frames. In contrast to the curved XXL format, the mini lamp remains steadfast as a one.

Risen from trash
Postmodernism and eco-consciousness Tom Dixon brings under one hat. The specially developed material Swirl shows strongly structured surfaces and is used for the production of accessories such as candle holders or bookends. In the production process, powdery waste from the marble industry is processed with resin and pigments to form blocks that can be worked with a saw or on a lathe. The exciting effect that can be achieved with this is shown by the candlestick made of three staggered cuboids with different structures, crowned by an upright cylinder with a candle holder.

Mini instead of Maxi
Another eye-catching trend of this Maison & Objet are compact dimensions. After all, anyone can revel in size. To succeed in a small space requires a special flair. La Chance presents the small chest of drawers Bump 2, which features shimmering galvanized steel fronts and feet and a marble shelf. Hemispherical hollows are embedded in the two doors, hiding the opening mechanism. The two Czech designers Jan Plechac and Henry Wielgus were inspired by the eye-catching seventies panels that cover Prague's metro stations.

Tiny as a chick, Lexon's Mina lamp is 8.3 centimeters tall and seven centimeters in diameter. The design by Andrea Quaglio and Manuela Simonelli is portable, recharges via USB connection and provides light for six hours. Shrinking the proportions opens up entirely new application possibilities. After all, the lamp can be placed where "normal-sized" specimens would never fit. Also, the handy dimensions tempt all the more to actually touch the lamp and not leave it in one place most of the time.

Renaissance meets Memphis
Milan-based carpet manufacturer cc-Tapis was already present at the Cologne furniture fair imm cologne, but additional models have been presented in Paris. The four carpets from the Cinquecento collection by Studio Klass play with spatial depth. Paintings by Renaissance painters Domenico Venezia, Giovanni Bellini and Ludovico Mazzolino served as models, and their pictorial structures were translated into basic geometric shapes. In the process of abstraction, the people depicted disappeared, while the perspectives of the architectural environment remained. Here, too, the new throws an anchor into the past - and serves up the forms seemingly removed from eternity with a postmodern wink.

Temporal fabrics
Those who don't like to travel quite so far through time can also stop off in more recent history. Milan-based designer duo Dimorestudio's textile collection Push It revives the late sixties to early seventies with geometric triangular patterns. At Missoni Home, the cover Stripes Mosaic at first sight reminds of patchwork. In reality, it is a continuous fabric divided into irregularly staggered color fields with stripes. What this is all about, the Italian fashion house explains thus: "With hypnotic mood and strong magnetism, generous spaces are illuminated." Sounds like a captivating feel-good strategy that certainly won't leave you bored.

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