For an Undersung Designer, an Overdue Retrospective
Over a century after her birth, the French designer Charlotte Perriand is finally getting her due. A retrospective of the pioneering avant-garde architect, who changed the course of 20th-century design with her elegant, industrial-inspired interior design and furniture, is now open at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. “Charlotte Perriand: Inventing A New World” features 200 of her designs, alongside the work of 15 artists from her time (for example, the French modernist Fernand Léger, whose artwork she sometimes featured in her interiors) and seven designers from her era, including the self-taught architect and metal worker Jean Prouvé. While Perriand may be best known for the Chaise Longue Basculante B306 — an adjustable steel lounge chair that she created in 1928 while working at Le Corbusier’s studio in her 20s — her contributions also include a prefabricated mountain resort in Savoie, France, asymmetrical wooden bookcases that call to mind paintings by Piet Mondrian and a necklace made of oversize ball bearings. “People keep thinking she’s a woman who designed just a few chairs with Le Corbusier,” says Sébastien Cherruet, a co-curator of the exhibition. “It’s not fair and doesn’t do justice to her work.”
Perriand, who was born in Paris in 1903, trained as a furniture designer at Ecole de L’Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. She experimented with glass and aluminum in the 1920s, making mechanical-inspired furniture that rejected the decorative Beaux-Arts movement, both in her own practice and while working as an associate with Le Corbusier. She turned to nature for inspiration in the 1930s, designing the interiors of Parisian homes, in addition to creating furniture. Perriand was bold and unconventional with the rooms she brought to life, hanging paintings by Léger, photographing fish bones as art and using cartoonish drawings by children as the basis for tapestries. At a time when female artists were often limited to working in textiles, she ranged fearlessly across mediums and fought for equal credit for her designs with Le Corbusier. “She was a strong woman ahead of her time,” says Cherruet. One photograph in the exhibition, in particular, captures her free spirit: Taken in or around 1929, it shows Perriand standing topless, arms raised, on a mountaintop in Sestriere, Italy. “Her message is very contemporary today,” says Cherruet. “It’s not just looking to the past; it’s a mind-set for the future.” “Charlotte Perriand: Inventing a New World” is on view now through Feb. 24, 2020, at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, 8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, Paris, fondationlouisvuitton.fr — NADJA SAYEJ
A Reunion That Led to a Fashion Line
Sometimes, for however long it takes one of us to bring up our dearth of marketable skills, my friends and I fantasize about going into business together. The founders behind the new online retail space Maiden Name, however, managed to make the dream a reality. Alix Freireich and David Lê met during freshman orientation at Vassar College and have been close ever since. After graduation, Freireich went on to study at Parsons and until recently was a shirts and blouses designer at Polo Ralph Lauren, while Lê continued in academia, getting his Ph.D. and becoming an arts editor and writer; once they hit their early 30s, though, they found that they were eager to build something of their own. What if Freireich designed a clothing line and Lê curated a selection of art and design objects to go with? For co-workers and collaborators, they could call on other people in their circle. Jesse Hudnutt, another friend from college who had been a buyer at Opening Ceremony, joined as the fledgling brand’s merchandiser and marketer, and Freireich’s former co-worker Susan Lee came on to work in design and production. Some of the people Maiden Name has partnered with are older friends still — Freireich knows the glass artist Paul Arnhold and the soap maker Addison Walz of Mater from the Connecticut arts camp they attended as children. And yet it’s important to everyone involved that the line feel like an open community and not a clique. The idea, says Hudnutt, is “to share the beautiful things we love with the world.”
For now, those things include Freireich and Lê’s first collection — six blouses made in New York’s garment district that are classic but not without personality. There’s a large-collared silk button-down with contrast trapunto stitching and a thin pussycat bow, a collarless shirtjacket with puffed sleeves and oversize mother-of-pearl buttons, and a brown gingham button-down with a ruffled shawl collar. “It’s a little ’70s Ren fair,” say Freireich, who took cues from the vintage pieces she’s been amassing since she was 12. “Out of the closet and into the limelight,” says Lê. The duo is also looking to boost the visibility of local makers. In addition to painterly handblown vases by Arnhold and soaps printed with poetry by Walz, shoppers will find marbled soap dishes from the ceramist Isabel Halley and 19th- and 20th-century curios sourced by Eric Oglander of the Instagram account Tihngs, as well as a line of works on paper, from limited edition artist prints to catalogs from past museum shows. The team is now at work on pieces for next season, though certain collaborations will be continuing. As Lê says, “These are long-term relationships.” maiden-name.com — KATE GUADAGNINO
From Gjusta and Sqirl Alumnae, a New All-Day Cafe
By now, the term all-day cafe has become a kind of catchall for a range of casual, grain bowl-centric new restaurant concepts that cater to diners with nontraditional schedules. The chef Mailea Weger has had her hand in some of the most influential of these California-inspired hangouts: She worked as an opening sous chef at Los Angeles’s Gjusta before running the kitchen at its more formal sister restaurant Gjelina, and most recently she was the executive chef at Paris’s sunny West Coast-inflected Echo Deli. But now, for the first time, Weger is calling the shots with her very own all-day concept. Last month, she opened Lou, a cafe in a converted 1930s-era craftsman-style home in Nashville with a menu focused on Southern produce but with a French wine bar sensibility.
In contrast to the blush pink walls and terrazzo flooring that have now become commonplace at all-day restaurants, Weger wanted to create a space with a more timeless feel. She describes the décor at Lou as “Gothic” and “grandma-ish.” There are antique mirrors, on which French natural wines are listed, floral wallpaper and a brick fireplace filled with candles. Her main inspiration for the atmosphere was the way people linger over meals in France, she says: “You watch people sitting at a table for hours and that’s the whole activity — they just feel so connected and intimate.” But there is one holdover from the hippie-ish vibe of other all-day cafes: Weger still burns palo santo at the start of each service.
As for the food, the vegetable-heavy menu made for sharing is accentuated by fermented ingredients and floral garnishes, while the pastry program is run by Sasha Piligian (formerly of Gjusta and the Los Angeles breakfast institution Sqirl). “Sasha’s desserts are a little botanical; they favor ancient grains and are not too sweet, which is really the idea behind the whole menu,” says Weger of dishes like a sumac granita with candied pistachio. Her current favorite among the restaurant’s savory offerings is a broccolini sandwich served on a wheat sourdough bread from the nearby pizzeria Folk, and topped with melted fontina, fermented chilies, pickled mustard seeds and loose scrambled eggs. “The food is not precious,” she says. lounashville.com — EMMA ORLOW
The Chain Necklace, Elegantly Reinvented
Ben Gorham, the founder of the boutique Swedish perfume house Byredo, has spent the past 13 years developing clean yet nostalgic scents with a cultish following (Bal d’Afrique and Gypsy Water are among the most beloved), but recently he’s expanded outside the olfactory realm to explore new aesthetic territories. In the past 12 months, he has designed leather goods, eyewear, upcycled sneakers and tailoring under the Byredo name. His latest venture is a jewelry project with the French designer Charlotte Chesnais: a 10-piece collection of co-branded rings, earrings and necklaces. “I met Ben about five years ago, and before I really even knew him well I had asked him to do something together. It was a time when I was refusing offers from other brands,” says Chesnais, who temporarily set aside the project after she gave birth to twins in 2018. When she returned to the idea later that year, the pair agreed that their starting point should be the classic chain necklace — a style Chesnais had yet to approach in her own line of sculptural, ergonomic gold and silver creations.
The star of the project is a chunky chain necklace designed with rounded, pill-shaped links connected by a stemmed double eyelet; the small joint gives the design a more controlled, articulated sense of movement than that of a traditional free-flowing chain. It is crafted in either sterling silver and gold plate, solid gold or, most luxuriously, 18-karat gold encrusted with pavé diamonds. “For me, jewelry has always been culturally important,” says Gorham, who collects midcentury Native American silver jewelry he picks up on his travels. “Coming from an Indian family, I grew up around jewelry as something you inherit — it’s about wearing your heritage. And then in my teens, I was immersed in hip-hop culture: It was all about four-finger rings, rope chains, Jesus pendants, eventually grills. I like the idea that this kind of utilitarian chain could exist in different worlds.” byredo.com — DAN THAWLEY
