Camille Fournet invites its customers to a new artistic experience in its Rue Cambon store. From September 22 to March 22, the Ittah Yoda duo will be exhibiting gentle sculptures inspired by the world of the Maison de luxe, just waiting to be caressed…
Art can sometimes be intimidating, preventing the connection between artist and public.
For the eleventh edition of her Équinoxes program, Camille Fournetinvites us instead to a warm, tactile experience with the new artists she has selected, the Ittah Yoda duo.
A sensual experience sublimated by art, reminiscent of that provoked by contact with her own Haute Maroquinerie, the fruit of exceptional craftsmanship.
Rereading the brand
Every six months for the past five years, at the beginning of spring and autumn, Camille Fournet has organized the Equinoxes program. Each time, the House invites a new “rereading of its brand” by selecting prominent artists in various disciplines: painting, sculpture, photography, music, etc. In previous editions, Fabrice hyber, Denis Dazarcq, Elsa Sahal, Maud Maris Lucien Murat, Orlan and Recycle Group, among others, have already taken part in the exercise.
The luxury brand, which likes to “play with materials and colors” in its own collections, and “designers, their inventiveness, their prowess and the wonder they inspire”, thus shares with its community of customers “a taste for creative experimentation and luxury for oneself”.
A particularly talented duo
Camille Fournet showcases the fruits of these collaborations in her Paris store on Rue Cambon, before taking them around the world. A series of sculptures by Ittah Yoda, created for Equinoxes 11, have been on show since September 22, and will remain on display in the boutique until March 22. Before giving way to other artists.
With Ittah Yoda, Camille Fournet has turned to a particularly talented duo of artists, open to collaboration and reflection on today’s world and materials.
Included in Le Monde’s ranking of the most promising artists, Ittah Yoda was born in 2013 when Japanese-Swedish Kai Yoda and French-Italian-North African Virgile Ittah met at the Royal College of Arts in London, from which they both graduated. The former specializes in photography and moving images, the latter in sculpture…
“Symbiocene
The duo’s works, the subject of numerous exhibitions around the world (in Paris + by Art Basel, at the Armory Show in New York, at Annka Kultys Gallery in London, at ARCO Madrid, etc.) express a utopian “symbiocene ‘ where ’the human, the natural and the digital would live in harmony”. The term “symbiocene” is based on the “concept of symbiosis, that lasting and fulfilling relationship for each being involved in this exchange”, explains the Galerie Poggi website, which is exhibiting the artist duo in Paris.
In his work, Ittah Yoda has a predilection for co-creation with artisans and the use of materials with a rich history, such as glass, brass, wood and aluminum. No wonder, then, that leather and Camille Fournet were able to stimulate their inventiveness.
“We were particularly inspired by the traditional excellence of the French luxury industry after visiting the manufacture: the attention to detail in the selection of materials, the handiwork of the artisans and the community it creates in the surrounding area and in the city,” explain the two artists.
They were also “intrigued by the fact that most of the products are designed to be touched and that the sensation on the skin is very important”.After “thinking about the experience of the customer and the people working in the store”, they decided to create “soft sculptures” for the Equinoxes project.
Soft sculptures
The most spectacular, a seat sculpture “inspired by the pillars of the Camille Fournet house (shapes, colors and feel)” now hangs in the heart of the boutique. The duo conceived this installation as “’a therapeutic object, which visitors are invited to touch, grasp, squeeze and thus experience differently during their visit”. They can even sit on it, while “a carpet on the floor delimits a zone between reality and fiction”.
To prolong this immersion in their universe, Ittah Yoda also offers a whole series of other soft sculptures on rue Cambon, whose “forms come from” the “genealogy of creatures” he has been developing for several years.
Here again, to facilitate this journey into their fertile imaginary world, the artists have worked on “ sensations of comfort and plenitude around a possible experience of a return to childhood”. To achieve this, they used “ natural materials, the colors of which are produced in their workshop using dyes derived from tinctorial plants”.
Colors and ecology
This is “in line with their ecological artistic practice”, while at the same time resonating with “the importance of color for Camille Fournet” and the sustainable approach of the luxury House. For the leathers (alligator, ostrich, calf, bull calf) that Camille Fournet selects for her products are not only rare: they come from partner farms in Louisiana, South Africa and France and respect “a virtuous ecological protocol” (REACH regulations, CITES convention…).
Born in 1945, Camille Fournet’ s first specialty was making watch straps. This is still the core of its expertise, with several hundred references in a wide range of materials, colors and finishes, for an ultra-customized experience….Boughtby the Déchery family in 1994, the company broadened its scope to include bags in 2006. All made in France, in its historic factory based in Picardie.
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Read also > Camille Fournet invites Patrick Corillon to her 10th edition of rencontres équinoxes
Featured Photo : © Camille Fournet
