The Best a Human Can Do
Jean-Marc Gady is a renowned Frenchman whose artistic vision has seen him collaborate with many of the world’s most influential brands.
He started his career designing houses, lighting and decorative table objects for Ligne Roset and Liv’it, and from his early days, had an interest in a range of industries. Nowadays he works on set, product, and interior design projects; and with a range of brands on their merchandising front.
His grasp on the world of luxury has seen him work with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Dior, Chanel, Guerlain, Moet & Chandon, De Beers and Christofle.
Gady is currently working on many diverse projects including collaborations with diptyque, Montblanc and Craman Lagarde. His partnership with Baccarat is being shown at Milan Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2013, this week.
Gady’s projects have the ability to break the codes of luxury and spatial dimensions.
fluoro spoke to Gady about luxury, branding, and the approach he takes to his work.
(f) What changes in the luxury industry have you seen over the last 15 years?
(JMG) The 2008 crisis has changed a number of things; primarily it has helped the luxury market to permanently get away from the ‘bling bling’ stories; to make it more sane. Luxury has gone back to its roots and looked back to the beauty of the patrimony and the excellence of handcrafting. It has taken into consideration the beauty of the gesture more so than the exaggerated signs of wealth.
(f) How do you approach your personal work differently to collaborations for brands?
(JMG) Luxury brands have an amazing patrimony sculpted by hundreds of craftsmen generation after generation, a savoir-faire and heritage that must be understood by a designer.
It’s not just about doing the same thing with the same spirit continually. It’s more about collecting evidence of what can be transferred to our own times – Gabrielle Chanel, Jean-Paul Guerlain or Christian Dior all had strong creative instincts at the beginning, and their ideas have travelled throughout the decades. That is really what I need to grasp before starting to create anything for them. Working with such brands I am touching something very precious, I like this idea of delicate work.
(f) What role does history play in your work?
A designer can’t do interesting things if he has no culture, that’s a fact. Curiosity opens all the doors and history is an important part of this, a century feeds the other. What you expect from a designer, without being too nostalgic, is to renew the codes and project it to the present day, even having visions for tomorrow.
(f) What does luxury mean to you?
(JMG) The best a human can do…
