Amid the vibrant madness of Paris Fashion Week, guests drifting in slow procession toward the shows, photographers hunting for silhouettes like rare birds – there is a visual interlude for our senses. Just steps away, nestled in the Jardin des Tuileries, Matter And Shape offers a different kind of wonder—a salon that, since its 2024 debut under Matthieu Pinet, has leapt from the digital sphere into the real world, quickly becoming a must‑visit destination for design lovers. Already embraced by the international creative scene, Matter and Shape reinvents itself this season around the theme of scale, exploring a rich constellation of pieces, materials, and craftsmanship from around the world. More than a fair, it feels like a laboratory of objects—a place where ideas take form, a place where you can unexpectedly fall in love…with a chair, a lamp, or a beautifully stubborn piece of wood.
Among the discoveries this year, my first mad crush was Tavares 1922 — The Bird Drop, a surreal heirloom collection developed with designer and creative director Omer Gilony. Combining natural shells with finely wrought silver bird feet, these aura-whisperers seem to have RSVP’d to my home, already mapping out their territory. Somewhere between sculpture and ritual object, they can function as salt cellars, candle holders, or small receptacles. Made to order and shaped by the irregularity of natural materials, each piece becomes a tiny narrative about the meeting point of sea, craft, and imagination.
Next up on my radar—and my second crush of the day Chapelle Industry. Founded by Leslie Johnson, a native New Yorker who splits her life between France and the U.S., the brand was born after years of her working behind the scenes at Comme des Garçons, Prada, and Givenchy. “I wanted to make something you buy and then pass on to the next generation,” she disclosed. The result is the Gonflant—a cloudlike object filled with 1000 × 100‑gram metric cube goose down from Les Landes. The installation piles oversized, textured Gonflants high, inspired by the children’s tale The Princess and the Pea. True to the story, a single pea lies concealed beneath the layers, and when Leslie lifts them, my eyes are treated to a private moment of illusion worthy of a David Copperfield finale.
Finally, I fell for the poetic world of Alice and Pierre‑Jr. for Notes de Bas de Paje. The fragrance house launched just two and a half years ago with four perfumes, and I asked Pierre‑Jr. about the idea behind them. He explained that the concept was simple but meaningful: to tell a story—highlight a place, a person, a memory. “Notes de Bas de Paje is about reading between the lines,” he said. “You catch the details that make a story alive. Without them, the tale is beautiful, but it stays on the surface.” In life, as in literature, it’s those details, secrets, and hidden explanations that transform an encounter into a relationship, a flirt into a love story. Our perfumes are these “footnotes” of our own stories—and of the one we’ve begun to write together.
All eyes on Towédé: a scent that drifts me back to the red earth of my grandmother’s Caribbean village, to days of unconscious wandering where cinnamon floated in the air and the world felt suspended. Wild, tender, and untamable, it lingers like a memory you never want to let go. Notes: Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Ambergris, Sandalwood, Leather, Dark Chocolate, Cashmeran, Vanilla, Patchouli.
