Matali Crasset is by training an industrial designer; a graduate of the Ateliers – E.N.S.C.I. (Workshops – National Higher School of Industrial Design). At the beginning of 2000, after her initial experience with Denis Santachiara in Italy and with Philippe Starck in France, she set up her own studio in Paris called Matali Crasset productions in a renovated former printing firm in the heart of Belleville. She considers design to be research, working from an off-centered position allowing both to serve daily routines and trace future scenarios. Her work revolves around searching for new coordination processes and formulating new logics in life. She defines this search as an accompaniment towards the contemporary.

Always in search of new territories to explore, she collaborates with eclectic worlds, from crafts to electronic music, from the textiles industry to fair trade, realizing projects in set design, furniture, architecture, graphics and collaborations with artists, young furniture-making companies, municipalities and communes. This experience acquired over the years has led her to currently work on more participative projects, on a local and global level, both in rural and urban settings. It’s ultimately the core question of living together, which defines her imaginative designs, writings and the sense of Matali’s work.

Photo Credit: SImon Bouisson, courtesy Concrete by LCDA

Matali Crasset Productions

With a master’s degree in private law and Administration of Companies, Catherine Colin began her career in human resources. She practiced in this sector as a consultant then HR manager for 15 years before creating in 1999 Made In Design, the 1st web site of sale of design in France.

Made In Design is first Catherine Colin’s passion for design. In 1999, when she founded the future reference of online design, she acted as a real visionary with a clear objective: democratize the access to design. Attuned since her childhood to creation and art, she knows how to get the poetry of the objects of the daily life and believed that design should be included and accessible to all.

Made In Design is also a quest of excellence and talents. The catalog of products selected by Made In Design always remains high-end and unpublished products, the company presses its strategy on key skills: the expertise and the specialization of the teams distributed between Grenoble and Paris, and the subsidiaries of the European Countries. In June 2011, Catherine opened a new chapter of the Made In Design’s history. For the first time, it was presented as a complete collection of edited objects: pieces of furniture, lamps and textile accessories. The selected designers embody the young French designers: François Clerc, Guillaume Delvigne, Vincent Eschalier, Gaëlle Gabillet, Catherine and Bruno Lefebvre, Bertrand Médas, Adrien de Melo, Renaud Thiry, Victoria Wilmotte.

Made in Design

Graduate in international business in 1990, Patrick started his professional career as a Sales and Marketing Manager for a sports newspaper. As he wishes to create his own enterprise, he got into a partnership with Philipe Chapelet in 1993 to launch a new delicatessen concept, l’EPICERIE DU MONDE. The aim of this project was to gather with the same area a thousand and one grocery products from over the world amongst a contemporary cultural, musical and gastronomic universe. Thus, two boutiques and a GLOBE TRAITEUR appeared in Paris (Vème and XVème arrondissement). The EPICERIE DU MONDE positioning itself as a pioneering WORLD FOOD vague that is well spread nowadays (cf book l’épicerie du monde de Patrick Elouarghi, editions Glénat).

Hi Life

Born in 1951, Anne-Marie Fèvre studied history and journalism in school. She has been a journalist since 1983 at “Liberation,” daily general. She has been writing on design and architecture since 1999. Anne-Marie is also the author of the book Pierre Paulin, with Elisabeth Védrenne, Editions Dis Voir, 2001 and author of The Channel from Calais collection Actes Sud, The Impensé, 2008. She has also authored various small items and catalogs.

Liberation