The Comité Colbert launches design-colbert.fr at Le Palais de Tokyo in Paris

Posted on November 27, 2008
Filed Under shows + contests, schools |

On November 27, the Comité Colbert will unveil design-colbert.fr, a virtual creation developed with “Le Pavillon,” the creative laboratory at Le Palais de Tokyo headed by artist Gerald Petit. The idea was to showcase the winners of the Young Designers Competition and explore new esthetic codes. A creation to visit online from November 27 to December 25 2008.

Young Designers Competition: 2008, a year for records
This was a year for record numbers: 1,600 entries, 35 luxury houses involved 46 winners and 38 projects. Over the last twenty years, the competition has earned an excellent reputation for the luxury sector in the field of design. Many French art and design schools have built luxury crafts into their curriculum.

Flexo Mathieu Girard, Ecole Bleue
Baccarat

A group of artists creates Les Sémiophores
Internships at Colbert companies give YDC winners a chance to realize their prototypes under the supervision of first-rate craftsmen. But the Comité Colbert decided to go farther and explore new territory: the Web. It turned to Le Pavillon, the laboratory of contemporary creation at Le Palais de Tokyo. Objective: keep a finger on the pulse of the new creative and esthetic codes emerging on the Web.

Ettore Geoffrey Istace, ESAAT Roubaix
Manufacture nationale de Sèvres

“There’s a natural affinity between contemporary art and luxury. We talk the same language based on the creative process. The Internet, with its creative ferment, is opening up a new world of the imagination that is shaping the minds of next generation. It is imperative for the luxury industry to explore this world and be part of it,” points out Élisabeth Ponsolle des Portes, President and CEO of the Comité Colbert.

The installation created by Gerald Petit and his group of artists immerses the visitor in a poetic, other-worldly ambience. One part, Les Sémiophores, presents the 46 winning students and their creations, with off-camera commentary to tell each story of each. In some cases, the central focus is the object itself.

Le petit Napoléon partit en voyage Mélanie Cosseron, ESAAB Nevers
Pierre Frey

Online users can become cyber-collectors
Some visitors navigating through the site will get a chance to download a work, free of charge, from a Limited Edition collection created especially for the occasion. You need to be one of the first hundred visitors to a given work of art and also visit the web site as often as possible, because these special opportunities arise at random during the 29-day period of the exhibition.

L’Agora, a platform for talking about design, digital creation and innovation
L’Agora joins the two other parts of the project: Les Semiophores, which tells the stories of these creations, and L’Encyclopédie, which is the place to go for information about YDC winners, their schools and participating companies. During the month of the exhibition, the Agora talk show will be shown on a dedicated Web TV channel, courtesy of Orange-innovation.fr, our partner in this undertaking.

design-colbert.fr (November 27 to December 25).