Milan 09: New French brand Moustache will present furniture and lighting by designers including Inga Sempé, Big-Game and Matali Crasset in Milan later this month.
The new range also features products by François Azambourg and Ana Mir + Emili Padros.
The collection will be on show at Via Tortona 19 in Zona Tortona from 22-26 April, during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile (international furniture fair).
Moustache is run by Stéphane Arriubergé and Massimiliano Iorio, who also own vinyl wall-covering brand Domestic.
Here's some text from Moustache:
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Why a new home furnishings company?
The idea of a new French company of contemporary home furnishings might seem either odd or gutsy, considering how full the world is with furniture and objects.
And if the company in question chooses to work with designers and producers who are close contacts (in every sense of the term—geography, affinity and tastes) whereas globalization seems to be the way of our times, isn’t this a little anachronistic?
And if the company’s aim is to build a network based on both complicity and know-how, and if the company believes that between very upscale and standardization there should be a wide range of choices: is this utter madness?
Announcing Moustache.
Founded and run by Stéphane Arriubergé and Massimiliano Iorio, moreover partners in Domestic, Moustache’s aim is to bring together a group of like-minded designers to nurture the development of innovative and honest furnishings that will stand the test of time.
Moustache seeks to break away from pre-set market concepts and create innovative products by combining a variety of approaches and thought processes. To open new domestic horizons designers such as François Azambourg, Big-Game, Matali Crasset, Ana Mir + Emili Padros and Inga Sempé cohabit in Moustache.
Rather than artificially developing the principle of novelty at any price, the products produced by Moustache will attempt to take advantage of passing time and to give them a little of the heritage value that furniture and objects held in the past.
Far however from looking nostalgically at the contemporary production of the objects, the Moustache collection will try to anticipate and project the solutions for our scenarios for future life.
At the scale of its market, Moustache will attempt to take up a position beside those which, rejecting some ideals of the society, are entrusted with substituting and inventing new ones.
Products
LIGHTING
Vapeur lamps and suspension by Inga Sempé (above)
Weightless in our interiors. The Inga Sempé Vapeur collection uses the mechanical and structuring qualities of the pleat to create strange and large lighting volumes.
AT TABLE
La belle et le clochard table by François Azambourg (above)
A previously unknown association of two materials with opposing qualities, La belle et le clochard table by François Azambourg invites the use of fused precious wood and polyurethane foam to create an extremely light table (12 kg) with astonishing acoustic qualities.
A table-top sandwich in maple or brazilian ironwood plywood and polyether foam. The base in solid maple or solid maple veneered with brazilian ironwood.
Instant table table by Matali Crasset (above)
With the Instant range, Matali Crasset has designed obvious articles starting with a simple tool: the trestle. While retaining it, Matali completes the trestle principle so that only one is needed to support the table-top. To be unfolded according to requirements, the Instant Table table is economic in materials: its top is made of all the wood chips left over from the cutting of its own base.
In plywood beech and brass.
Box table by Big-Game (above, centre)
Taking inspiration from and applying the pleating techniques used in the cardboard and aluminium industry, very light, the Box coffee table is easily moved by means of the handles drilled into its sides.
SEATING
Bold chair by Big-Game
Made up of two tubular parts in metal embedded in each other, the Bold chair is an updated version of the tradition of a chair in tubular steel. Inflated with a thin polyurethane foam, the line drawn by the Bold successfully plays the role of foot, seat then back and gives it an amazing level of comfort. With a single stroke, in the manner of the Osvaldo Cavandoli Linea, and thickened similarly to the font which is made bold, the Bold chair succeeds in doing away with the seat and back. Covered with a removable textile coating, the Bold chair can change colour in a few seconds.
Box stool by Big-Game (above)
Taking inspiration from and applying the pleating techniques used in the cardboard and aluminium industry, very light and versatile, the Box stool can be folded away like a cardboard box. A hole is pierced in the centre of the seat so that it is easy to carry, it brings to mind certain mass seating in the last century.
Instant seat chauffeuse by Matali Crasset
With the Instant range, Matali Crasset has designed obvious articles starting with a simple tool: the trestle. While preserving its versatility, Matali associates it with a shell seat to create an armchair. The trestle shape follows the shell’s profile and, at the back, has a hook for a bag or anything else. The two are very easily separated so they can be put away or stacked. An article conspiring to make the Instant Seat armchair comfortable can at any time disappear to take advantage of the space it took up.
STORAGE
Armoire souple storage module by Inga Sempé
Inga Sempé has done substantial research on the pleat and, this time, uses its characteristics to create the façades of an amazing storage module… Made of a sycamore structure, its flexible cupboard can be accessed from the front or the back and, by stacking, enables storage space of variable dimensions to be created.
Access to this flexible cupboard is by simply sliding and folding back a pleated textile surface along a rail. Precisely observed and studied, the mechanical qualities inherent in the pleat applied to the simple and recurring gesture of opening and closing. Available in 4 colours, a large number of combinations, horizontal, vertical with 2, 4, 6, 9 elements, are available. Its dual access and the possibility of stacking several also enables it to be used as an element partitioning the space.
Mètre shelf by François Azambourg (above)
The Mètre shelf unit by François Azambourg takes over the mechanical principle of the mason’s yardstick to articulate a support all along the wall to take the shelves. Delivered folded. It is up to the user to unfold the Mètre to install his shelves.
Slastic coat rack by Ana Mir + Emili Padros (above)
The Slastic coat rack goes back to the order that parent generally give to their children not to draw on the walls and, once adult, invites them to disobey it. Each deposit on the coat rack marks your having been there and participates in the collective achievement of a work very far from being just an accident.
CREATING PRIVACY
Xtra room interior refuge by Matali Crasset (above)
Matali Crasset has always been interested in the principle of building/unbuilding articles in the living space. Flexible, therefore her Interior Xtra room refuge, according to needs and wishes, can be unfolded or removed. Putting up a passing friend in the house, cutting oneself off to work, read, watch television, the Xtra room offers a better management of space by creating transient sub-spaces. From the simple principle of a trunk/posts, the Xtra room makes it possible to build a structure which, according to the number of elements assembled, becomes a screen, a private corner or a real refuge.
Completed by a felt-lined skin, the hut becomes homely and welcoming, suitable to carrying out a large number of activities in a single open area. A tool for partitioning the area, the Xtra room refuge is a light alternative to building walls.
Location in Milan
MOUSTACHE
C/O DROGHERIA
VIA TORTONA 19
MILANO
Press preview 21 April 16.00 – 19.00
Cocktail 23 April 19.00-24.00
See all our stories from Milan in our special MIlan 2009