Notes from Maison & Objet, Paris
What the European trade is showing this season — and what is quietly being walked away from.
Maison & Objet is the only fair on the calendar where the conversation is still about the fabric, the maker, and the room — not the algorithm. I attend every January, and the work I see there sets the tone for the next eighteen months of specification in the studio.
This season the European trade has clearly moved on from the high-contrast, hard-edged neutrals of the last cycle. The mills are showing softer, warmer, more dimensional palettes — oat, fawn, parchment, dust — and a deeper investment in texture: heavy weaves, hand-loomed inconsistencies, visible warp.
What is quietly being walked away from: the bouclé moment is ending, glossy synthetics are nowhere on the show floor, and the 'performance velvet' category that dominated 2023 has matured into a much smaller, much more honest set of offerings.
I will be specifying more from the Belgian and northern Italian mills this year than I have in several seasons. The fabric is asking to be hung.
Olga Rechdouni is the principal designer of House of Drapery and a consulting specialist on custom drapery for the residential interiors of Los Angeles. She is a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and works privately with homeowners, interior designers, and architects.