PROFILES

Interior architect, designer, creative director… Stéphane Parmentier creates as he breathes. Constantly. Accessories and furnishings but also entire worlds, for an international clientele tuned into his luxurious simplicity.

Always between planes, projects, work sites, Stéphane Parmentier nonetheless takes the time to connect with the people he meets, and to give of himself generously. His story starts in his birth town of Nice. From his early years he knew his path would be either fashion or aviation. He trained in fashion design then learnt the ropes at Chacok and Bleu Blanc Rouge, determinedly laying foundations for the future. At 19 he won a young stylist competition run by Marie-Claire Côte d’Azur, and used it as an ‘open sesame’ to Paris fashion houses, first Angelo Tarlazzi then “everything coming together magnificently”: Lanvin, Hervé Léger, Claude Montana, Givenchy… and “the luck, the joy, of being Karl Lagerfeld's assistant. Eight magical years alongside an exceptional man!” That was Parmentier's first life.

Diverting to interior architecture
The second came about through an invitation for tenders by Singapore Airlines, looking for a couture house to overhaul its first-class cabins. Givenchy's pilot project masterminded by Parmentier was chosen. “I'm a real plane geek!” he says. “I got to reimagine that whole world, design the glasses, the cutlery, the logos, the seating, the pyjamas…” That experience diverted him into interior architecture. He worked with India Mahdavi: “I landed with my fresh approach and my fashion mindset fearing nothing – fabulous! But I only really jumped ship in 2002 when I set up my own agency. At once I was given really great projects to manage in Paris, London, Miami, Geneva.... Residential contracts but commercial ones too, such as Orange's new headquarters opened in 2012, all 17 storeys of it, and just after the suicide crisis. It had social import, I had to give the place soul, create a familiar, welcoming environment.” From early on he designed furniture for his contracts but only “officially” took off as a designer in 2005 with his Petites Architectures collection of kitchen work surfaces and blocks. The 2010 Stéphane Parmentier for Ormond Editions collection established him: small pieces of furniture – stools, coffee tables – in patinated lava, silvered sanded oak, pierced stone. “A year later we won the benchmark Wallpaper magazine's Best Launch prize!” Since then the range has grown regularly, as this September with the line of bronze-patinated furniture created for the AD Intérieurs 2019 exhibition.

The elegance of essentials
Stéphane Parmentier confronts his material, transmutes it through initiatory explorations: wood by applying sublime gradations, leather with the Italian Giobagnara firm, silver with Christofle, bronze with Astec, brass with Vervloet and Pouenat, travertine, his favourite stone. Noble and unprocessed materials rubbing shoulders. His style? “My creations have a false simplicity, stripped-back but complex in their manufacturing. People often describe my style as ‘warm minimalism’. In my interior architecture you also find my little dissonances, my antinomic references, my opposites, my masculine, my feminine, my ancient, my modern, my sensual, my brutalist.” An integral eclecticism that as creative director he feeds into American concept store The Webster's home line plus the one-of-a-kind DragonFly collections (Le Domaine des Étangs).

Making things move
Parmentier also hones the style of well-known brands and designs contemporary collections for heritage houses. “Companies with a fine DNA. I love dipping into their knowhow. You have to learn and respect their language but so as to create things that are desirable today.” In 2018, Var carpet-maker La Manufacture Cogolin produced the very graphic Nord-Sud collection by the designer. “I've always thought the Cogolin carpets absolutely beautiful, whether hand knotted or woven on the 19th-century hand looms. My collection was inspired by ceramicist Roger Capron's work and the traditional paving stones of my native South, but also my adopted home of Paris. A very flexible collection in a variety of patterns and colours. By combining these rugs and runners you can create ‘broken continuities’. That's so me!”

Par Christine Mahé