Elle Decoration
15th April 2007
May 2007 Issue
FANTASTIC FOUR
French quartet 5.5 Designers are wowing us with their experimental yet homes-friendly wall stickers,lighting and recycled furniture
Why should you buy another object? How can you add to the things that already exist? These are two questions that occupy French quartet Vincent Baranger, Jean-Sébastien Blanc, Anthony Lebossé and Claire Renard, aka 5.5 Designers. The four, who met while studying design at applied arts college ENSAAMA in Paris, are known for quirky lighting and customised furniture with a playful, interactive twist. Their most attention-grabbing project to date, though, has been their fabulous wall stickers for French company Domestic – reusable patterns of flowers, animals and household objects that enable you to personalise your space at will. The latest stickers incorporate real hooks, plugs and clocks into their designs, adding function to fun.
The group began working together in 2003, after their graduation, with an installation at an art gallery in Nîmes, France. ‘We set up a “hospital” for furniture, grafting together used and broken chairs, tables and lamps to create new hybrid pieces,’ says Anthony. From these experiments the ‘Réanim’ furniture collection was born, an ongoing project that encourages users to salvage worn-out old chairs and tables with Day-Glo plastic leg splints and ‘prosthetic’ seats.
New designs include their ‘Style IV’ lamp range which unites decorative light fragments on a mirrored cross frame, and more Domestic stickers are in the pipeline. Watch this space!
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