By Decorex Africa

With South Africa selected as the spotlight country at Maison & Objet this year, and the city alive with African design presentations across the Paris Design Week programme, design from the continent took pride of place in one of the annual design calendar’s most prominent gatherings. Our team looks back and shares some highlights from their trip.

With the annual design calendar of design weeks, fairs, and exhibitions so vast and far-reaching, there is no shortage of options for design acolytes to decide where their design adventures will take them. Paris Design Week, held annually in the month of September, goes one step further than many of the others.

Aside from being held in the great city of love itself - a design marvel all of its own - the design week joins forces with the September edition of Maison & Objet each year for a truly expansive design experience that, aside from Milan Design Week and its Salone del Mobile, few other global design weeks could come close to rivalling.

For the design industry in Africa, however, this year’s edition of Paris Design Week will be remembered as one of its most historic. For the first time in its history, South Africa was selected as the spotlight country of Maison & Objet. Beyond and above this, the city was alight with smaller presentations of the continent’s leading designers across the Paris Design Week programme. 

“Being in Paris for Maison&Objet at a moment when South Africa was the spotlight country was incredibly significant for us at RX Africa. Our partnership with Maison&Objet is about creating meaningful opportunities for our design community to connect with the wider world, and it was exciting to see that relationship translate into such a strong African presence in Paris.

What stood out for me was the sense of momentum across the continent. From the Rising Talent showcase to Lagos Design Week’s ‘All Roads Lead to Lagos’ presentation, we were seeing African designers not simply participating in the global design conversation, but contributing to and shaping it. Seeing the work of emerging Nigerian and South African designers presented alongside some of the world’s leading names was a powerful reminder of how much talent and creative energy exists across Africa — and how important it is that we continue to build platforms that give that talent the international visibility it deserves.”

At Decorex Africa, we’re incredibly passionate about bringing the continent together, and recently initiated another significant continental partnership with Lagos Design Week, which we were so thrilled to see showcased as part of the Paris Design Week Factory. Following their presentation at 100% Design Africa at Decorex Joburg this year, it was so exciting for us to see their ‘All Roads Lead to Lagos’ world tour continue onward to Paris, where Lagos Design Week founder Titi Ogufere showcased seven emerging Nigerian designers. The designs coming out of Nigeria right now are so elegantly realised, and brought such a vibrant feeling to the exhibition. With so much going on in the world at the moment its easy to lose sight of how much we have grown as an industry, and seeing Africa’s designers take their place among some of the best in the world makes our whole team incredibly proud.” 

“The quality of the exhibitions at Maison & Objet has always been one of our team’s global benchmarks, and so to be present at the Maison edition where South Africa featured so prominently brought the circle home in a very powerful way for me. The actual Rising Talent exhibition was expertly presented, and the team at Maison really allowed the objects that our South African designers created for the show to speak for themselves. We deal with South African design so closely, and have been for so many years, that it’s often easy to overlook the scale of what the industry has built, but to see it through the eyes of Maison’s visitors was unforgettable.

Paris itself is one of my favourite cities anywhere in the world, and being able to explore the Paris Design Week program while walking the streets, eating an Almond Croissant, or cycling on a Lyme bike with my colleagues, is such a unique experience. I loved seeing the work of Morocco-born designer Sana Benzaitar at Female Design Futures, who weaves the most incredible rugs with her cooperative in Marrakech. Seeing Nigerian designer Marizu Onwu’s Adala vessel at the 1000 vases exhibition was also a standout highlight for me from the trip.” 

“Being present at the Rising Talent showcase, and the awards event at Maison & Objet to award Meetlo Studios and Pinda Designs their Rising Talent Awards, will always stand out for us as truly significant moments not just for local design, but for the growth of the industry itself. Seeing some of our brightest designers shine on the global stage and receive recognition for all their hard work, despite the challenges we face in this country, is the reason we do what we do. That moment was only made sweeter when seeing so many more exciting African designers, ‘get their flowers’, as the kids say, at Paris Design Week.

One of our favourites from the week was the presentation of work we saw at the White Label Project’s Paris edition of Female Design Futures, where designs by leading women in design, including South African designers Mpho Vackier of TheUrbanative, sisters Rucita and Viveka Vassen of Ananta Studio, and Agata Karolina of Gozdava 1590, were showcased so thoughtfully and beautifully.” 

For more highlights from our trip, and to stay up to date with our team’s design expeditions across the globe, make sure to follow our social media pages and subscribe to our newsletter.