Source : TheTelegraph.co.uk

Sacha Walckhoff's Minotaures

The name Sacha Walckhoff may not be so familiar to those outside the fashion firmament. Although it’s become better known since 2009 when the Swiss-French designer took over as creative director at Christian Lacroix, following the departure of Lacroix himself.

Since then Walckhoff, who joined the House of Christian Lacroix in 1992, has been busy trying to transform the label’s fortunes by reinventing it as a lifestyle brand through a series of licensees, the most prominent in the UK being a home décor range, developed in collaboration with Designers Guild, which launched in 2011. The collection of fabrics, wallpapers, rugs and cushions bear the flamboyant trademark Lacroix motifs of graphic monochrome prints and extravagant decorative patterns inspired by opera, theatre and matadors.

Now he’s branched out, with a range of porcelain vases designed under his own name and in collaboration with the Portuguese porcelain brand Vista Alegre. There are 12 pieces in the Minotaures collection, which has been produced for Marie-Bérangère Gosserez’s influentialGalerie Gosserez in Paris, an internationally renowned gallery specialising in contemporary furniture and decorative arts.

Walckhoff was inspired to create Minotaures following a visit to Vista Alegre’s Ilhavo factory, « I was immediately attracted to the « Touro Domecq », an emblematic piece, and so I had the idea to create minimalist vases in biscuit white porcelain, with the bulls appearing and disappearing around their cylindrical shape, expertly brought to life by the Vista Alegre’s sculptors and painters ». Walckhoff also looked to Surrealism to create the pieces, which play on reality and fantasy, specifically « the worlds of Cocteau, Magritte and Picasso, and the pre-war magazine Minotaure published by André Breton ».

You just have to glimpse at Walckhoff’s Paris apartment, overflowing with collectables, surreal artworks and half a stuffed zebra, previously featured in the Telegraph, to see that this collection truly embodies the eccentric, playful but worldly spirit of his personal aesthetic. Walckhoff remains at the helm of Lacroix, but there is the promise of more own-brand design projects to come. Judging by this first collection it will be interesting to watch the house of Sacha Walckhoff take shape.

Sacha Walckhoff « Minotaures » runs until Saturday 22nd February 2014

Unis à la ville comme dans leur studio, ce couple phare de la génération post-Starck prépare une bombe médiatique pour l’an prochain. Il s’agit des chambres et du restaurant de l’hôtel Baccarat, que la manufacture lorraine construit à New York à l’approche de son 250e anniversaire. « Des lampes en cristal, des moulures à la française, du mobilier sur mesure et du bois sombre », à en croire les quelques détails fournis par Patrick Gilles sur ce projet qui va occuper onze étages entiers d’une tour plantée pile en face du MoMA. Ce créateur discret, formé chez Christian Liaigre, et son épouse Dorothée, passée chez Philippe Starck, élaborent également en ce moment les plans du Mandarin-Oriental de Marrakech, qui sera inauguré lui aussi en 2014. Sans parler de ceux du Six Senses de Megève, de la première collection de meubles signée Gilles & Boissier exposée à partir de novembre 2013 chez Acte 2 Rive gauche, d’un projet de boutique-hôtel à Madeleine et du nouveau flagship Moncler inauguré ces jours-ci à Paris.

Gilles & Boissier