Debuting collections at Paris Design Week 2026. VOLT FACE by Studio 5.5 x Schneider Electric – Photo by Vincent Baranger of Studio 5.5.
Design. The French capital has become September’s most inspiring destination for design lovers. Archipanic’s founder and Editor-in-Chief, Enrico Zilli, explored Paris Design Week and Maison & Objet Fall Edition, hunting down seven pieces worth remembering — from a desk built out of Parisian construction waste to a wheeled chair borrowed from the Formula 1 paddock.
Switches First
Photo by Vincent Baranger of Studio 5.5.
On any construction site, sockets and switches are an afterthought — the last thing anyone thinks about. Vincent Baranger and Anthony Lebossé of Studio 5•5 flipped that logic entirely. At the Paris Design Factory exhibition, they unveiled VOLT FACE, a lighting and furniture collection made with Schneider Electric, built around the brand’s Odace range. Sockets and switches become a vocabulary here, a raw material in their own right, revealing the richness of materials, colours, and finishes hiding in plain sight — and it works with a click!
Bone as Design Material
Courtesy of Galerie BSL.
At Galerie BSL, Zbeul Studio‘s Thomas Noui and Victor Robin showed Archeologia, a chair made from bovine bone dyed black using cabinetmaking techniques, paired with a spare black powder-coated steel frame. Sitting somewhere between furniture, sculpture and archaeological find, it plays a deliberate game between attraction and unease — familiar material, strange result. It was one of the sharper provocations of this year’s Paris design calendar.
A Desk Built From the City Itself
Photo by Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt.
Studio MVE — designer Mattéo Lécuru and architect Vincent Eschalier — presented pieces made from recycled aluminium, wood, brick and materials salvaged from Parisian building sites. Gustave, their standout desk, adjusts between sitting and standing height on two solid aluminium legs, topped with a generous linen-wrapped oak surface that hides the lifting mechanism entirely.
Racing On A Chair
©11h45.
At the Tout Est Chaos exhibition, Studio Lapoire‘s Hugo Poirier presented F1, “a wheeled chair for living life to the fullest. Or escaping from it.” Built around a chequerboard motif — part Formula 1 flag, part homage to Andrée Putman — the piece mixes constructivist structure with graphic punch. Its castors add a wink of irony, letting the chair roam freely through increasingly open, mobile interiors. A playful highlight of this year’s Paris design line-up.
Movement, Frozen in Steel
Photo by Grégoire Sevaz.
Galerie Emma Donnersberg paired collectible design with contemporary art in a compact, considered setting, anchored by Donnersberg’s own Ribbon collection — a bench, daybed, side table and console in stainless steel, all organic curves and reflective lines. As she puts it: “Ribbon is my interpretation of movement made permanent. A flowing line transformed into a sculptural object that invites you to pause.”
Cosmos, By Way of Brass
Photo by Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt.
For Maison Pouenat, Jean-Louis Deniot designed the Hélios pendant lamp, its slender stainless steel and brushed brass spokes suggesting a mechanical cosmos in motion. Part of The Sublimated Designs collection — twelve pieces drawn from the house’s archive and reworked in signature finishes — it closes out this year’s Paris design showcase on a suitably orbital note.
Pattern as Identity
Photo by Yon De Poncins.
As part of the Rising Talents showcase at Maison & Objet, Siyanda Mbele of Pinda Interior Design presented The Zulu Chair, drawing on the geometric vocabulary of Zulu culture. Its angular silhouette and triangular cut-outs translate pattern and symbolism into sculptural form, while repeated shapes across the backrest and legs echo the rhythm of woven and beaded textiles — a quiet nod to heritage rendered in furniture.
Seven pieces, seven stories, one unmistakable message: Paris has cemented itself as design’s most fertile testing ground — proof that even the smallest material holds a big idea.
F1 Chair by Studio La Poire at the TOUT EST CHAOS exhibition – ©11h45.
