équinoxes 1
Maude Maris
Premier acte, september 2018
Painting, oil and canvas
130 x 160cm
“I wanted to highlight our shared fixations, namely the attention paid to the material and, especially, the almost architectural conception behind our respective creations. In this work, a leather cut-out seems, through a game of illusion, to merge with the painting’s background, which also appears perforated, cut-out. As a response to the production process’s initial gesture of cutting, pigmented objects emerge in the foreground and reprise some of my own gestures in the atelier; these are traces of life that remain open to a broader interpretation by the viewer .” Maude Maris
Photo credit: Rebecca Fanuele
équinoxes 2
Elsa Sahal
Acrobate, march 2019
Sculpture in enamel and leather
130 x 160 x 110cm
“I wanted to compare leather-working techniques with my own. When I visited the factory, something very simple became clear: patternmaking means constructing leather volumes around a void. Camille Fournet’s bags contrast rigid and highly flexible components. That’s what makes the bags’ design. I use the same technique with clay that I model using plates around a void. Using the same language of pattern and volume, from 2D to 3D, we were able to work with a prototypist at the factory to reinterpret clay volumes in leather.” Elsa Sahal
Photo credit: Pierre Antoine
équinoxes 3
Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil
Comment te dire adieu, september 2019
Installation, The Tronchin table
93 x 60 x 145cm
“I wanted to pay tribute to heritage, memory and savoir-faire. The irreversible transformation of a piece of 100-year-old furniture projects it into the future, into a new story. The phrase ‘COMMENT TE DIRE ADIEU’ (‘HOW TO SAY FAREWELL’ in English) is engraved on the tabletop, a gesture of love, respect, reflection and questioning. It is an invitation to self-reinvent, to reinvent tomorrow’s heritage.” Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil
Photo credit: Kinuko Asano
équinoxes 5
Lucien Murat
Sasori, september 2021
Patchwork
176 x 252 x 60cm
“I wanted to create a work that explores the relationship between femininity and movement. Through a play of mirrors, the ultra-femininity of a woman who’s engaged and in motion confronts men with the absurdity of how masculinity is represented. Working with leather, which is often subverted from its habitual sensuality through painting, embroidery, or stamping, let me emphasize the power of that fiction.” Lucien Murat
Photo credit: Alice Haldenwang
équinoxes 6
Fabrice Hyber
Surprise, march 2022
Sculpture in mixed mediums and leather
50 x 180 x 36cm
“When Camille Fournet’s team told me about a new collection on movement, I thought about going places and what we take along with us. The bag seemed to me like an extension of the body, like a prosthetic, and a gift we give ourselves that becomes a part of us wherever we go. So I created a leather-clad mannequin with a squared belly who is as one with his bag. Green symbolizes renewal, like a gift from nature, and represents the idea that small gestures create big rivers. Being aware of our environmental impact is already a big step.” Fabrice Hyber
Photo credit: Kinuko Asano
équinoxes 8
Recycle Group
Phaéton, march 2023
Mixed media
140 x 100cm
“When we received the invitation to create a new project for the Camille Fournet boutique as part of equinoxes, we were keen to take up the challenge of placing artworks in a limited space. Phaéton is a reflection on the web space, on a new understanding of reality in which you can’t completely discern which world has more influence, the real one or the digital one. Once exiled or distanced, a person loses their virtual personality, which can sometimes prevail over the real one — especially considering the amount of time we all spend in the virtual world. In Greek mythology, Phaeton lost control of the chariot and was cast out of heaven.” Andrey Blokhin & Georgy Kuznetsov
Photo credit: Kinuko Asano
équinoxes 9
ORLAN
L’éléphant de la forêt d’Afrique en voie de disparition et nouveaux robots en objets et matériaux recyclés, september 2023
Digital photography
182 x 275cm
“Leather goods make us circle back to savoir-faire, to what’s called ‘a beautiful hand’, but also to bags made of leather or exotics (lizard, crocodile...). Nowadays, we’re all taking a closer look at the materials we use, whether natural or artificial, and their carbon footprint. My work questions the disappearance of certain animals and birds. I hybridize those animals with others in their natural environment, surrounded by robots. The robots are made of recycled objects. They are there to question new technologies, which can either destroy or build a more just world.” ORLAN
Photo credit: ORLAN
équinoxes 11
Ittah Yoda
Flamboyant, september 2024
Installation, mixed media
125 x 195cm
“This installation was conceived like a scene suspended in the heart of the Camille Fournet boutique, so that visitors could feel immersed in it. It’s a universe inspired by the pillars of the maison Camille Fournet (shapes, color, tactility). Various elements of the installation invite the viewer to engage with Ittah Yoda’s work through touch and immersion, by sitting on the sculpture/seat. On the floor, a carpet defines a zone between fiction and reality. For this équinoxes project, we specially designed a new series of soft sculptures: their shapes derive from the genealogy of creatures that we have been developing for several years now. In keeping with our ecological artistic practice, we also wanted to work with natural materials whose colors are made by using plant-based dyes that we develop in our atelier and evokes the importance of color at Camille Fournet.” Ittah Yoda
Photo credit: Kinuko Asano
équinoxes 12
Yasmina Benabderrahmane
Camille Fournet, La Manufacture, march 2025
Multimedia installation
Varying dimension
“I propose an in-situ installation, in which leather-like images become as one with the shop’s furniture; they are also revealed by fragmented light boxes. A sampling of colored materials is poised between leathery skin and human flesh. The eye travels across the grain, the dermis, the very matter of the image, and the figure becomes figurative. Camille Fournet, La Manufacture is also a film comprised of words, exchanges, and gestures as well as singular tools that artisans create to execute exceptional savoir-faire, both in watchmaking and in leatherworking. The idea is to wander through the shop wearing wireless headphone that set the tone and reprise the workshop’s soundscape while also magnifying it, letting visitors experience as closely as possible the artisans’ gestures, the leathers and the mechanics of craftsmanship.” Yasmina Benabderrahmane
Photo credit: Yasmina Benabderrahmane
CAMILLE FOURNET ENJOYS PLAYING WITH MATERIALS AND COLORS. WE LOVE CREATORS, THEIR INVENTIVENESS, THEIR ABILITY AND THE WONDER THEY'RE CAUSING