Milan 2014: products by French design brand Moustache will be exhibited as a "breathing" installation at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan to celebrate the brand's fifth anniversary.
The Half Decade Beast installation of new and existing designs by Moustache, created by French designer Jean-Baptiste Fastrez, will pulsate and appear to breathe.
"Alive and breathing, the Half decade Beast has 10 new projects to show, which open up and prospect new ways for publishing and production," said a statement from the brand.
The installation will include a chair by Dutch duo Scholten & Baijings with textile ribbons woven around a lacquered metal frame to create the seat and back.
Milan studio Formafantasma has used tanned salmon and perch skins leftover from the fishing industry to cover a stool and create a hot-water bottle, similar to items in their Crafica collection.
Curving overlapping forms created from injection-moulded recycled plastic by Constance Guisset form shades for table and pendant lamps.
An iridescent vase designed to look like a scarab beetle shell and a mirror framed with welded PVC have both been designed by the installation's creator, Fastrez.
Bertjan Pot, Ferréol Babin, Raw-Edges and ECAL graduate Dimitri Bähler have also contributed designs.
The piece will be installed at Spazio Rossana Orlandi from 8 to 13 April during Milan's design week. It will then move to the Bon Marché Rive Gauche department store in Paris for a further two months.
Photographs are by Charles Nègre.
Moustache - Half decade Beast
8 – 13 April 2014 Spazio Rossana Orlandi, Milan
On the occasion of his 5th anniversary, Moustache presents Half decade Beast, a beast at the half-way point of his first decade.
Alive and breathing, the Half decade Beast, his slow and assured breathing, has 10 new projects to show which open up and prospect new ways for publishing and production.
A living incarnation of Moustache's commitments in favour of projects which are not only dictated by market requirements but also by the cultural quality they convey, taking into account the recent history of manufactured articles, Half decade Beast presents together projects designed by Scholten & Baijings, Formafantasma, Bertjan Pot, Raw-Edges, Constance Guisset, ECAL/Dimitri Bähler Jean-Baptiste Fastrez. In their own way, they all question the way in which, today, we produce and consume the objects we surround ourselves with.
Rather than heading towards a certain technological escalation or trying to satisfy outmoded ideals and standards, these 10 new products shuffle the cards and, each in its own way, argues for a reasoned production consistent with our contemporary ideals.
Alive, Moustache's Half decade Beast installation also shows a selection of articles that Inga Sempé, François Azambourg, Big-Game, Ionna Vautrin, Benjamin Graindorge, Sébastien Cordoléani and Dylan Martorell designed since 2009 which marked the story of Moustache and which played a part in building his identity.
The Half decade Beast will make his first stop at the Spazio Rossana Orlandi during the Salone del Mobile from 8 to 13 April 2014 before settling in at the Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris for two months, in May and June 2014.
For the Half decade Beast exhibition, Moustache asked Jean-Baptiste Fastrez to design the beast and the setting, the Graphiquants to design a breathing font and all the graphic elements for the exhibition.
A series of 12 photos of Charles Negre goes with the exhibition.
Strap chairs by Scholten & Baijings
Lacquered metal structure and textile straps. Stackable, for indoor and outdoor use. Three colours available.
The Scholten & Baijings Strap chair is a reinterpretation of the tradition of cane or woven chair produced in Holland for the first time at the start of the 17th century and which have been in France since the 18th century.
As is their custom, Scholten & Baijings put colour at the heart of the project and give it an unusual material status. Going back to the project's origins, it is the colour which determines the use of a particular know-how and not the contrary. No longer bound by the status of its customary finishing, colour is determining and it is in this inverse process that the innovative coloured harmonies of the Strap chair work.
The attention paid to the quality of the finishing and the manufacturing details are what make the Strap chair a perfect seat for both for outdoors and indoors. Stackable, at the same time it will be a worthy contemporary heir to the cane bistro chairs to be seen on the terraces of Paris cafés or as a very comfortable seating around a table in a domestic world.
Pad stool by ECAL/ Dimitri Bähler
Black or light grey 3D textile, expanded foam.
Pad is the result of a series of experiments with foam injected into a flexible envelope, without using any structure.
Pad is a stool which takes its inspiration from the triangulated construction of a large number of objects. Its ribs, at first sight, basic and rigid, contrast with the use of a flexible and random fabric.
These ribs are what structure the envelope and form the article's "exoskeleton" while giving it a padded and comfortable appearance.
In an instant, when the foam is expanded, the ribs become taut, the envelopes swells up and Pad takes it final form, every time a different one.
Fins, Perch and Salmon stools by Formafantasma
Vegetal tanned salmon and perch skins, solid ash.
The Fins de Formafantasma collection puts to use fish skins rejected by the fishing industry and, in this way, examines the question of resources and materials in the furniture industry. These skins, in vegetal-type tanning, are most frequently obtained from commonplace fish such as salmon or cod and are used here to cover a stool or to shape the cover of a hot-water bottle.
Apart from the aesthetic appearance inherent in the use of tanned fish skins, this material commits its user to an unusually direct relation with the animal world.
Zoomorphe, the Formafantasma Fins collection for Moustache flirts with the world of taxidermy and the symbolism of the wild world.
Accolade trestles by Raw-Edges
Adjustable height. White or light grey laminated black mdf.
Similarly to the building sets of our childhood, the Raw-Edges Accolade trestles provide a set of elements for assembly by the user to build a pair of trestles however as he wishes and whose height he can vary. Once built, the trestles' black band displays the familiar punctuation marks deriving from typographic typefaces.
Fins, Perch hot-water bottle by Formafantasma.
Vegetal tanned perch skin and glass tube.
The Fins collection by Formafantasma puts to use fish skins rejected by the fishing industry and, in this way, examines the question of resources and materials in the furniture industry.
These skins, in vegetal-type tanning, are most frequently obtained from commonplace fish such as salmon or cod and are used here to cover a stool or to shape the cover of a hot-water bottle. Apart from the aesthetic appearance inherent in the use of tanned fish skins, this material commits its user to an unusually direct relation with the animal world.
Zoomorphe, the Formafantasma Fins collection for Moustache flirts with the world of taxidermy and the symbolism of the natural world.
Aurore lamp by Ferréol Babin
Black or light grey. Lacquered metal base, multi-coloured glass.
The Aurore lamp by Ferréol Babin is more for projecting than diffusing light.
Turned towards the wall the lamp lights, this wall is transformed into a reflector. Thanks to a filtration system, the Aurore lamp produces coloured luminous effects which change depending on how far away from the wall it is. This mechanical light filtration system produces colour effects similar to those seen at dawn or during rainbow.
When switched off, its disk becomes opaque and transforms its surface into a mirror creating reflections in changing colours.
Cape by Constance Guisset
Cape table lamp by Constance Guisset. Two models: small or large. Injected recycled polycarbonate. In seven colours.
Cape pendant by Constance Guisset
Injected recycled polycarbonate. In seven colours
Like a half animal, half plant silhouette, with its fluid curves between softness and tension, Cape reveals its pale and opalescent colours. Fragile on its metal base or pendant, soft and ethereal, it seems to incarnate a breath. Its two interlinked shapes gracefully reveal a mysterious presence.
Scarabée vase by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez
Enamelled ceramic, pmma and rubber band. Two colours available.
Comprising two shells fitting into each other, held together by an elastic connection, the Scarabée vase takes inspiration, even imitates, the constructive and aesthetic principles of the insect which it is called after.
While evoking the scarab's iridescent aspect, its front, which also borrows certain codes from the world of sport and the motorcycle, contract with each other and with the body of the vase, craft-produced in enamelled ceramic.
The Scarabée vase by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez also somewhat draws from certain contemporary or older fantastic mythologies.
Boat mirror by Jean-Baptiste Fastrez
Lined PVC coated fabric and mirror.
The frame of the Boat mirror is made of welded PVC fabric diverting the use of materials for manufacturing nautical equipment to a domestic purpose.
By its softness, the mirror's oversized frame acts like a garment. Like a coat or a hat, by means of a strap, it can be held on in a large number of ways.
An open and polymorphous object, the Boat mirror may have both a character and new expressivity that can be freely determined by its use.