PROFILES

“Sublimating the day-to-day where you least expect it.”  Hugo Volpei has set himself a huge task.  In 2015, this thirty-year-old from Nice, who studied at the EDHEC Business School, was in London for the weekend and went into the toilets in Sketch, a trendy bar in Soho.  “It’s a 60m² room with colourful ceilings and eggs by way of cubicles.  The experience is crazy, but the toilet bowls are white like everywhere else. I thought it needed to go further.” To create a desire for an object rarely considered desirable, even taboo, and unchanged for 250 years. Such is the basic premise of Trône, a start-up launched in June 2018. Icone01 was launched first: a design model with a glazed ceramic bowl and transparent tank in which you can see the water going down and up.  But that was not enough for him.  “Putting a beautiful design object on a white wall is rather boring.  So we started offering architectural services, designing this intimate place in its entirety.” The Italian restaurant group Big Mamma was his first client. Hugo designed seven strikingly different booths: one with a chalet atmosphere, a nightclub with neon lights, a Berlin squat... which rapidly became the most Instagrammed 2 m² in Paris. “The idea is to push the experience from A to Z, from plate to toilet. When you go into the restaurant, you are surprised.  When you go to the toilet and you are doubly surprised. It makes your customer experience even crazier.” And the latest places to go have understood this.   In the region, Bocca Nissa, Carmela, Mamma Mia, La Pinède in Cap d’Ail, as well as Mirazur in Menton (voted best restaurant in the world) have called in Trône. All the places where you need to be seen... and taking selfies of a Trône model has become as interesting as taking pictures of a dish. After raising €2 million in November 2020, how does Hugo Volpei envisage succession to Trône?  “We want to rethink these day-to-day objects, improve their use, their impact on the environment.  Our essentials contribute to our well-being. So, why not reinvent them?”.

Par Raphaëlle Elkrief