Votre palette de couleurs ?
As a child of the Châteaux de la Loire, Elizabeth Leriche spends her days walking around barefoot. Although she was far from the frenzy of the big cities, she developed a natural curiosity through her frequent travels. The trend-hunter began to build up her cultural background at the age of 18, when she arrived in Paris. With her diploma in hand, she spent five years with the Nelly Rodi consultancy, where she learned her trade, before launching her own structure, whose mission revolves around “colours, materials and shapes”. “We spend a lot of time developing colour ranges and assembling images that tell a story in order to draw our clients into a world. This is also achieved through scenography”. “I love events, designing installations that will be dismantled four days later. I often have flashes, images that come to me spontaneously of what I would like to develop around a given theme.” At trade fairs, she imagines, in particular, the exhibitors’ stands. And for the January 2023 edition of Maison&Objet, Elizabeth has imagined a “What’s New” space under the prism of lightness. The space, named “In the Air”, is composed of 3 distinct areas, named “To Breathe”, “To Contemplate” and “To Laze”. For Goodmoods, she deciphers this mood and what inspired it.
“The general theme of the January 2023 edition of Maison&Objet, “Take Care!”, immediately evoked “Take air”, and by extension a need to breathe, obviously, under a pure blue unpolluted sky. The first space, “To Breath”, is therefore immersed in blue.
Setup In the Air by Elizabeth Leriche at Maison&Objet 2023 © AETHION
The second, “To Contemplate”, is dedicated to craftsmanship, to the long time, to the work of the hand that gives meaning to our objects, that invites meditation, to a kind of floating, is in neutral tones. This is the whole issue of consuming less, but better.
Setup In the Air by Elizabeth Leriche at Maison&Objet 2023 © AETHION
Finally, the third part, “To Laze”, refers to global warming and summer laziness, when one is overwhelmed by the heat. The convivial one, shared with friends, which reminds me of the sunset shades that we like to observe at the end of the day, from orange to purple. In fact, this place, which is very sunny, was the most popular. People needed to be comforted. And we worked all these shades in gradations, like the sky changing with the passing hours.”
Any recent love affair with this project?
“We were preparing the exhibition when I received an invitation from Hermès for their show. “Fabrique de la légèreté”. The title, like the palette, from blue to orange to the white of clouds, everything was in line with my idea for the show. So I took my whole team with me. This show – which had little to do with what we were doing – which touched on childhood, moved us a lot.
The materials of this mood?
“We favoured everything that brings lightness, such as glass, striated, coloured, graded or transparent. In fact, I would have loved to have installed a large draught, for people to fly away, for it to be fun! I also thought of paper for its fragility and the beautiful materials in which we like to curl up, like cashmere, wool or recycled cotton.”
A place to get in the mood?
“Benesse House, designed by Tadao Ando on the Japanese island of Naoshima, whose gaping hole is an opening to the sky, connects us to the elements and invites contemplation.”
Benesse House in Naoshima Island designed by Tadao Ando
Objects that represent this mood?
LYN SMALL shop window designed by Visser & Meijwaard for Pulpo
LYN SMALL shop window designed by Visser & Meijwaard for Pulpo
A work that evokes this mood?
“Shinji Ohmaki’s Liminal Air Space-Time /2015, installed at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, is almost nothing: a veil floating in an empty space thanks to a wind tunnel. And yet it is very moving.”
An exhibition related to this mood?
“Starting with the idea of lightness, I wanted to create paper houses, and paper takes us to Japan, to Isamu Noguchi’s lamps. I had seen the “Noguchi” exhibition at the Barbican, in London, featuring both his sculptures and his lighting. The relationship of gravity between heavy things and the lightness of his paper lamps was magical. The museum itself, with its brutalist architecture, is sublime.”
Furniture that illustrates this mood?
Artists who express this mood?
3 words to describe this mood?
“Breathe, contemplate, laze.”
