The Robb Report Collection

Feature: What's In a Name?

Antoine Proulx’s dining suite in bleached ash.

“We live in a world now where everyone believes they have the right to be fabulous,” says Los Angeles interior designer Madeline Stuart, who describes her made-to-order furniture as neither trendy nor contemporary, but quietly elegant and understated. “Whether the person is a shoe designer, a sheet maker or a cookbook author, everybody wants their name out there because we live in a cult of celebrity. If your name isn’t out there, you haven’t achieved a level of success that is due. It’s your right as an American.”

So why should the furniture business be any different? asks another independent, Marc Desplaines, owner and designer of San Francisco–based Antoine Proulx. After all, the marriage between furniture makers and interior designers is a long-established union. “When you look back at Pierre Chareau, Eugene Printz, Eileen Gray or Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, they were all interior designers who started making furniture so that they could control it. It’s how they established their look and how they got their commissions,” says Desplaines.

Antoine Proulx’s dining suite in bleached ash.

Marc Desplaines of Antoine Proulx designed the bedroom suite—platform bed, bedside table and light fixtures—in smoke gray oak. (Photo by Ted Dillard, click to enlarge)

“Ten years ago when I started out, the furniture business seemed so loosey-goosey,” says Desplaines of Antoine Proulx. “In many cases, you needed a hovercraft to get through the showrooms because most were piled with $5,000 chairs lined up against the walls. That’s not the case anymore.” These days Desplaines equates what is happening in fine furniture with his early days when he was working for fashion iconoclast Yohji Yamamoto. “Today, the showrooms are done as vignettes by designer, by collection. You know when you’re in the Ted Boerner space or the Antoine Proulx area. It’s all marketed, advertised and put together the way fashion has always been.”

For the complete article visit The Robb Collection

	Feature: What's In a Name? William Kissel 03/01/2004 (Exerts)
Antoine Proulx’s dining suite in bleached ash. “We live in a world now where everyone believes they have the right to be fabulous,” says Los Angeles interior designer Madeline Stuart, who describes her made-to-order furniture as neither trendy nor contemporary, but quietly elegant and understated. “Whether the person is a shoe designer, a sheet maker or a cookbook author, everybody wants their name out there because we live in a cult of celebrity. If your name isn’t out there, you haven’t achieved a level of success that is due. It’s your right as an American.” So why should the furniture business be any different? asks another independent, Marc Desplaines, owner and designer of San Francisco–based Antoine Proulx. After all, the marriage between furniture makers and interior designers is a long-established union. “When you look back at Pierre Chareau, Eugene Printz, Eileen Gray or Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, they were all interior designers who started making furniture so that they could control it. It’s how they established their look and how they got their commissions,” says Desplaines. Antoine Proulx’s dining suite in bleached ash. Marc Desplaines of Antoine Proulx designed the bedroom suite—platform bed, bedside table and light fixtures—in smoke gray oak. (Photo by Ted Dillard, click to enlarge) “Ten years ago when I started out, the furniture business seemed so loosey-goosey,” says Desplaines of Antoine Proulx. “In many cases, you needed a hovercraft to get through the showrooms because most were piled with $5,000 chairs lined up against the walls. That’s not the case anymore.” These days Desplaines equates what is happening in fine furniture with his early days when he was working for fashion iconoclast Yohji Yamamoto. “Today, the showrooms are done as vignettes by designer, by collection. You know when you’re in the Ted Boerner space or the Antoine Proulx area. It’s all marketed, advertised and put together the way fashion has always been.” For the complete article visit The Robb Collection