Maison et Objet
Paris, France
Dates: 8th – 12th September 2022
Web: www.maison-objet.com
Marieke van Heesbeen
Netherlands
Maison et Objet 2022 – Report by Marieke van Heesbeen
London Design Fair 2022 – Report by Celia Macedo
November 16, 2022
Maison et Objet 2022 – Report by Olena Lazorenko
November 17, 2022AN EXTRACT FROM THE CASE STUDY FOR CRAFTING EUROPE
“Maison et objet” is located outside of the city center but very accessible with the train. The fair is divided over 7 big halls with different themes: home accessories; cook & share; kids & family; craft; home linnen; fashion accessories; unique & eclectic; forever; today; fragrances; smart gifts. The fair is quite commercial, it is perfect for retail business. Overall, most of the stands are really big and are like show rooms. A lot of companies have a place in their stand where you can directly order the products. People are interested in buying on a larger scale.
For me, only the craft department was interesting, which was totally different than the other themes. Unlike the others, all walls needed to be white and there was no red carpet which you could follow. Because of the white walls the space felt quite calm. The craft department is one of the smallest themes in the faire, but within this department you had sub departments. When you entered the space all of the jewelry designers were together, than you had wood work, glas work, ceramics and sculpture.
The fair wasn’t totally what I expected it would be: in my mind it was more a design fair, but the focus for this fair is mostly retail and contacts. Personally for me it is way too big and the quality of the work too different. In some of the areas I was quite shocked about the amount of work that was presented into the stands. And I found it regrettable that in the craft department all of the ‘same’ makers were put together, no mingling with other disciplines. But I also do understand that with a fair of this size it is good to do it so that the visitors can search quite easy for what they want to see. And I can also see that if you have a product for retail that this is a good spot for contacts and retail options. The key is to know where you want to be located.
