The Designers on Our Radar After This Year’s Design Parade in Hyères and Toulon

As we hurtle towards the September make-up version of Salone del Mobile — which will mark the first major in-person design fair since COVID began, advisedly or not — we first wanted to turn our attention to the return of one of our favorite smaller fairs, the annual Design Parade in Hyères and Toulon from Villa Noailles in the south of France. We’ve always been smitten with the competition format for these two festivals, which seems to unearth amazingly talented designers we’ve never heard of. But I’m not quite sure I’ve ever paid attention to what the winner of the competition receives — it’s quite a bounty.

In Hyères this year, a jury led by French designer Constance Guisset selected Cécile Canel and Jacques Averna for the grand prize, which consists of a research scholarship of one year at the ceramics facility Sèvres, a one-year research scholarship at Cirva in Marseilles, a personal exhibition at the next edition of Design Parade, a workshop offered by Vitra at Domaine de Boisbuchet, among others. In Toulon the interiors duo of Edgar Jayet and Victor Fleury won a 5,000 Euro grant from Van Cleef & Arpels, a personal exhibition in Toulon during next summer’s Design Parade 6, in summer 2022, a jury seat in next year’s competition, a grant by American Vintage, and a window display at some of the jewelry brand’s shops around the world. Again, we wonder why no American companies see the value in sponsoring a similar competition here, as opposed to, say, sending their leaders into space, but we will keep working to raise the profile of design — starting with some of our other favorites from the fair, which we’re publishing here today!

Toulon

Boutique Toulon
Aleja Castellanos & Francois Leite
Capucine Guhur
Clemence Plumelet & Geoffrey Pascal
Ecole Camondo Mediterranee – Monique Boutique
Marc-Antoine Biehler & Amaury Graveleine
Turco Staff
Llewellyn Chupin
Studio KO