The chair met an immediate success right after its official release at the May 2016 New York ICFF Design Exhibition. Félix Guyon considers it as being part of Larose Guyon’s La Belle Époque collection. Larose Guyon is another business of Félix’s, one that he cofounded alongside his better half Audrée Larose in 2016.
All of this collection’s objects and luminaires are inspired by the romantic period of time in Paris’ second industrialization which historians call “La Belle Époque”. Each of their collection’s creation bears the name of a famous person from the end of the 19thcentury and this new chair is no exception to that rule, as its namesake was one of the first movie directors.
It was inspired by Georges Méliès’ magical universe, where imagination soars in a boundless sky and the past and future meet. Georges Méliès, a pioneer of the surrealist genre, has long been an inspiration to Félix Guyon “I don’t think I will ever grow out of it; I desperately need to infuse poetry and magic in this world. I believe it is at the heart of what I do. I believe it is my mission. In my line of work, we don’t save lives; a designer’s work is pointless in a way, or at least far from being vital. But beauty and magic are, in order to make sense out of our short time on this Earth. And I feel they must be pushed forward, whatever the price.”
For this suspended chair, which will be part of his upcoming furniture collection, Félix admits to the cold sweat that comes with struggling for such a balance between toughness and lightness, between “art deco” elegance and contemporariness. This chair is the first of a new collection that should be launched next year. A reading chair, a dinner table chair, a coffee table and a few luminaires will also be featured. It is a daunting task, since every piece requires several months of development