This September edition of Maison&Objet (Paris, 8-12 September) is organized in 14 sectors, with more than 2,000 exhibitors (including 600 new entries), three trend spaces (What’s New?), impressive installations and a program of 20 conferences. An entire world gathered around a theme, Meta-Sensible, a concept that reconciles two apparently contradictory aspects of our time: on the one hand, the desire to escape into a digital ‘elsewhere,’ and on the other the increasingly strong urge to live and share real experiences.
“The physical and digital worlds are no longer opposites. Instead they are blending, becoming a hybrid, augmenting each other,” says Vincent Grégoire of the agency NellyRodi, who has coined the terminology. All this translates into a taste that generates dialogue between the dreamy style of the metaverse (soft tones, rounded and almost unreal forms, iridescence) and the natural materials, textures and techniques typical of crafts and handmade production. One perfect example is ceramic, a material that is now at the center of countless creative and artistic experiments.
The Meta-Sensible theme, a key for the interpretation of the entire event, will be particularly vivid in the three initiatives of the What’s New? section: Utopia Now by François Delclaux, Color Power by Elizabeth Leriche, and Kaleido-Scope by François Bernard. Three mini-exhibitions, each organized in multiple chapters, where objects and accessories (almost all on view in the fair) become the props of sets that narrate three visions of style, three ways of living and dwelling. This fall edition of Maison&Objet Paris also sheds light on the talents of tomorrow with Future on Stage, an honor bestowed on three new makers of design editions that have emerged after the pandemic.
Another important feature of this edition is Pavilion 3 with its focus on food. The exhibition Wow the table illustrates the evolution of codes of dining through dreamy settings: a jury (composed of India Mahdavi, Thierry Marx and Stéphane Bern, who are also the protagonists of a special conference) will select the most beautiful entries. Meanwhile, the Cook & Share section offers visitors the rare opportunity to share the cuisine of future culinary stars selected by Gault&Millau.
