West Coast Vibes and Bistro Chic: 13 Top Picks From January’s Maison&Objet

Los Angeles and Paris are rarely uttered in the same breath. But at this winter’s Maison&Objet, the trade show held in the City of Light twice a year, a certain Californian-French hybrid of sunny and casual-cool abounded, if not expressly en plein air.

Aesthetically at least, L.A. has become associated with a devotion to vibrational esoterica along with a sense of fresh-faced possibility. Today’s “L.A. look” is not either-or but both-and, located between midcentury and Postmodern form—pared down, like so many fitness gurus, to sacred geometry.

Bistro seating was the look’s ambassador, as the following pages show. A collection of outdoor seating by Philippe Nigro for Italy-based Metalmobil, for instance, offered graphic minimalism, while Robert Stadler brought a cheerful update to Maison Drucker’s 1885 rattan bistro chair. Both pieces would be equally at home in Venice, California, as well as Le Marais. But the look extended to interiors as well: bold profiles yoked by natural woods, practical metals, and taut upholstery, with an easy optimism lent by a surf-and-desert palette of whites and pastels. The effect is both nostalgic and new—just like the changing of the seasons.

You may also enjoy “Rhode Island’s O&G Studio Puts a Modern Twist on Traditional New England Craft.”

Would you like to comment on this article? Send your thoughts to: [email protected]