Design Parade 2024: our guide to Hyères and Toulon

At the Villa Noailes (Hyères)

Hat to cap

A long-time resident of Mexico, the French designer was appointed president of the 2024 design competition. In this capacity, he had the privilege of transforming the former swimming pool of the Villa Noailles into a huge living room designed around his creations: sofas covered in multi-colored velvet designed for buses, lamps assembled from tin utensils from Guadalajara, lamps and candlesticks published by Hem, photorealistic rugs and, above all, exquisite wooden coffee tables covered in colorful mosaics. Entirely covered in wallpaper, the former squash court is a collection of his work on patterns and color, imbued with the Mexican imagination. And on the terrace, he revisits the deckchairs of Mallet-Stevens by using fluorescent yellow cans as counterweights. A brilliant demonstration of how design can embellish everyday life.

Also read: #ELLEDécoCrush: these July desires for a decor that changes

The new wave of design

In the cellars of the Villa, the 10 finalists of the design competition exhibit as many projects that show the extent of the concerns of the new generation of creators. Door handles to be opened with the arm rather than the hand for greater hygiene, architectural firelighters, armchairs created from recycled mattresses, sculptural lamps in metal inflated by water, furniture in marquetry of decommissioned wind instrument reeds… Our favorite project? The scaffolding of Alex Sinh Nguyen that revisits religious architecture in a post-industrial version in enameled ceramic to give it the appearance of metal.

Nathalie du Pasquier, in shapes and colors

The woman who participated in the emergence of the Memphis group in the early 1980s then pursued a career focused on painting. After a retrospective last spring in Toulon, she returned to the Villa Noailles, decorating a long gallery with her murals and ceramic tiles in an inimitable style.

Also to see at Villa Noailles:

The sensitive exhibition of the 2023 winner, Yassine Ben Abdallah, who explores the colonial memory of Reunion through glass objects made at Cirva in Marseille.
The exhibition is dedicated to Marie-Laure de Noailles, patron, artist and sponsor of the Villa, where her paintings are displayed alongside those of Dora Maar, Cocteau and Giacometti.
The Villa Noailles boutique with its exemplary selection, where Stéven Coëffic designed an all-ceramic kitchen, including switches!
The wood dryer designed by the designer/cabinetmaker duo Materra-Matang for the Carmignac Foundation on the island of Porquerolles
The guest room of the Villa where the original furniture of Sybold Van Ravesteyn (1925), a disciple of Mondrian, was reconstituted by the Mériguet-Carrère workshop…

Villa Noailles. 47, montée Noailles, 83400 Hyères. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Free admission.

Elsewhere in Hyères

The exhibition of prototypes of Mathieu Lehanneur’s Olympic torch at the Tour des Templiers.
Furniture by Marseillais Axel Chay for the Toulon publisher 13desserts, exhibited at the Pour vous boutique (24, avenue des Îles d’or).
The new Banane d’or boutique/gallery which presents an impeccable selection of vintage and contemporary fashion and furniture (rue du Soldat-Ferrari).

In Toulon

In recent years, the city center of Toulon has been transformed, and the teams at the Villa Noailles led by Jean-Pierre Blanc are no strangers to this spectacular transformation. In addition to the many exhibitions organized each summer, their support for designers, architects and publishers has allowed the emergence of a local scene that is unique in France.

At the Hôtel des arts – Remix, furniture rescue lesson

First essential stop at the Hôtel des arts which hosts the exhibition “Remix” orchestrated by the Mobilier National. The public institution has entrusted 40 artists and designers with furniture from public institutions that had been declassified because they were damaged or out of fashion. Each one has worked to give these “alienated” objects a new life. Alexandre-Benjamin Navet transforms an old Empire bed into a vitamin-packed conversation cabinet. Rodolphe Parente plays with a very simple chest of drawers that he re-covers with hand-worked blue leather, “so that it looks like a big piece of chewing gum”. Pierre-Marie resuscitates a pair of 19th century chairs by reupholstering them with Aubusson tapestries bordered with colored nails… So much proof that alienated furniture always has unexpected creative potential. Better still, they are a support for innovation… Former Parade Toulon design winner, Paul Bonlarron has designed a subtle scenography, fitting out living spaces (bedroom, lounge, office, etc.) in this former private mansion bathed in lavender and pale yellow decor. And he uses the diamond motif to recall the harlequin, a character who also changes identity by putting on make-up…

Hôtel des Arts de Toulon. 236, boulevard Maréchal Leclerc, 83000 Toulon. Until November 3, 2024. Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free admission.

At the Old Bishopric – Marion Mailaender’s holiday apartment

As the president of the interior design competition, Marion Mailaender from Marseille has imagined a dream apartment located on the shores of the Mediterranean. When you enter her “Sea View Residence”, you find yourself in a very seventies hall with a wall of ceramic tiles representing an ice cream bowl, green plants, mailboxes and copper doorbells (the neighbors are called Sophie Calle or Francis Cabrel and answer when you ring their doorbell!). Inside the apartment, you will find a host of Mediterranean details: a giant sofa for summer receptions, a curtain printed with a photo of a beach vacation…

But also objects and works of art that reflect both Marion Mailaender’s taste for recycling and her sense of diversion: a carpet printed with a clichéd real estate ad, a wall tapestry made of computer keys and used toothbrushes, a Verner Panton-style chandelier where the tassels are replaced by used sunglasses lenses, a kitchen in recycled marble marquetry… and a mold for making plaster garden dolphins! A way for her to remind us that “works of art must be part of our daily lives.”

10 future stars of decoration

The ten finalists of the interior design competition each inherited a room in the Ancien Evêché in which they were able to deploy a decorative concept linked to the Mediterranean. As we wander around, we discover their worlds and their narratives. The Palazzo by Sébastien Gafari and Sarah Guedes immerses us in an abandoned Italian palace with its coffered ceiling, its wall frescoes, its 4.5-metre sofa and its revisited trumeaux. The brilliant Belgian Willie Morlon creates a marquetry decor of Placoplatre panels, a poor material that he transforms with the gesture of his hand into a precious ornament. Clément Rouvier (Parasite Studio) was inspired by the Rolling Stones’ stay in the Villa Nell Cote in Villefranche-sur-mer in 1971 to deliver a Côte d’Azur music studio, with its lithophone bench, its brick guitars, its cymbal suspension and a magic closet from which the song of cicadas escapes. Magical!