Design as a frame for life: In September 2016, MAISON&OBJET PARIS honours one of the most successful interior designers in Britain. Ilse Crawford is named Designer of the Year for the September 2016 fair. She will be the very first Designer of the Year to handle the scenography of the Designers’ Studio, in Hall 8.
Every year, MAISON&OBJET spotlights the most outstanding names on the international designand decor scene today. In September 2016, British designer Ilse Crawford will receive the Designer of the Year award and will have the opportunity to showcase her work on a space entirely dedicated to her.
Ilse Crawford started her career as a journalist and was the founding editor-in-chief of ELLE Decoration UK. After over a decade in magazines, with a mission to put human needs and desires back at the centre of design, she founded her multi-disciplinary practice Studioilse in 2001.
This sensitivity-driven approach is evident even in her earlier works, with the Soho House Group. For ten years, she lent her talents to this international network of exclusive private clubs, hotels, restaurants and spas. During that time, she also completed a great number of projects: a
restaurant, Cecconi’s, and the club of the Electric Cinema, both in London, the Babington House hotel in Somerset, the Soho House hotel, in New York City. All of them are evocative examples of her philosophy, to create environments where people feel comfortable, spaces that make sense for those that will use them – to create a frame for life. This idea, to enhance the human experience,she applies to public spaces, private homes, products and commercial projects. In 2008, for the first Aesop shop in London, she decided to focus on creating an intimate atmosphere, while highlighting the historical dimension of the building’s architecture with thoughtful contemporary accents.
In 2012, she put the same talent to use to reveal the magic of Ett Hem, in Stockholm, where she turned an arts and crafts building into a hotel, run like a family home. The following year, her vision turned Duddell’s, a private club in Hong Kong, into a collector’s house.
And in 2014, she redesigned the VitraHaus and came up with the story of a Finnish-German couple, to bring Artek and Vitra’s collections to life.
The work undertaken in 2015 for the Cathay Pacific first class lounge in Hong Kong is a testament to her ability to reconcile the experience of luxury with wellbeing. Also that year, she launched a collaboration with IKEA which transposes her philosophy into democratic design. The Sinnerlig collection is a line of lamps, accessories and furniture, everyday useful pieces that celebrate the tactility of natural materials.
The Designers honoured this year by MAISON&OBJET are: Rafael de Cárdenas for MAISON & OBJET AMERICAS, André Fu for MAISON & OBJET ASIA, and Eugeni Quitlet for the January edition of MAISON & OBJET PARIS.
Since 2015, MAISON&OBJET has choosen one Designer of the Year for each show: two for MAISON & OBJET PARIS (January and September), one for MAISON & OBJET ASIA and one for MAISON & OBJET AMERICAS., for MAISON & OBJET PARIS, each of these two designers must fit within the profile of each of the Paris shows, that is, a more product design-oriented profile in January and a designer more closely
related to the world of interior architecture or decor for September.
For MAISON & OBJET ASIA, the Designer selected will be a renowned personality in the world of Asian creation representing the incredible richness and diversity of this vast area, which is becoming a major player in design creation and innovation, architecture and interior architecture.
For MAISON & OBJET AMERICAS, the personality will be chosen according to the same criteria as for MAISON&OBJET ASIA, with the overriding priority of providing an opening to both Americas, an ambition that forms an integral part of the DNA of MAISON&OBJET AMERICAS’s positioning.
