At this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, Blueprint’s acting editor Tim Abrahams interviewed Philippe Starck about his new furniture for Cassina. The range, entitled the Privé Collection, is designed to accommodate and facilitate sex. A slightly truncated version of the interview appears below.
Philipe Starck (Ph.S): You want me to explain it? You know, I’m not so interested in ‘design’ by itself for the product, especially now it’s so trendy. I always try to work with a concept, a real idea and later I just apply it, not the contrary.
I have worked on this idea for little more than ten years… If we hope that love is everywhere, we can be sure that sex is everywhere. And if you go to the movie – sex; if you watch tv – sex; open magazine – sex; conversation – sex. Sex is everywhere. And yet, not in furniture. Now, you can see a new generation of sex toys everywhere, you can see even a new generation of sex shop everywhere, but strangely, nothing in furniture. That’s why you have the sex-toy, and you have not the playground to play with. That’s why I said, something is missing, something is not coherent. Why, there is a taboo ? If there is a taboo, I love to break all that!
I was always very interested by the woman. Often, I heard that the woman is a little bored, to make love everyday, the same thing, in the same position, in the same bed – they want some thrill, they want some surprise. But in regular apartment, you have the bed, or, the bed, or the bed, and perhaps, Sunday morning they can try the carpet. But, the carpet is not very good for the back! They do it one time, and after they don’t do it again for three months. That’s why, why not make a collection which can help the comfort for the woman? Because I think the woman can have more pleasure, if she is more comfortable. That was the woman’s part.
Also, for the man: man has changed. Because now, because of the healthy attitude, even some artificial pills, now man can have a much longer sexual life. If a guy can have sexual capacity till eighty years old, still the body is not of twenty years, and the pieces in Privé can help with adjustment in high position things like that.
That’s why, between the comfort of the woman, the comfort of the man, and finally, why not just make things more playful? I design that.
It’s very easy to design something, we can say, ergonomically sexual. But when your grandmother arrives or mother-in-law arrives on Sunday afternoon to drink your tea, it/something like that can be a little embarrassing. That’s why the trick of this collection, the first collection, which speaks clearly about sex, which have really a sexual function, but plays a double language, it’s like the Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. That means, in the day, we have something very clean, timeless, no imagination; it’s a very simple, well done, good quality, elegant. But – at night, the beast is back and, everything is open. That is the story of this collection, and I think it’s important to make something in that, because sex is everywhere, is everything.
Tim Abrahams (TA): So you say you’ve been developing this idea for ten years?
Ph.S: Oh, more.. because I don’t find the right tuning, the right balance, the right double language, and finally, I find it recently. I have designed a lot, a lot, a lot about that, and it was either too complicated, too much costly, too heavy, it become too much like a machine and when they become mechanical they become expert thing, which a is a little “uh-oh” because, we love sex but we are not professionals! Sadly, we are not porno-stars. That’s why…
TA: Is there a key to that double language, what was the key to solving that?
Ph.S: It’s this: the white and black, day and night, this cocktail of three elements; take Cassina – so chic, so bourgeois, so well-known, like the Queen of England; in this put the technology, with hydraulic things, and finally bring the concept. It is just a proper balance.
TA: Did you need to convince Cassina?
Ph.S: Strangely not. Strangely not. I spoke with a lot of people before… There has been something of a rebirth at Cassina, it’s a new team, new energy and they love it. I was very, very scared, especially with the catalogue.
. . .
Ph.S: I will give you the black catalogue. The Black catalogue comes sealed. With pictures by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.. And after, it becomes a lot more interesting. And that is more interesting than the chair, if you agree… And we used real porno-stars to have a real fuck in the photo session.
TA: Yeah?
Ph.S: Not so bad, eh? It’s the first time we speak like that in furniture business. With the bed, it’s very symbolic.
TA: So how much research did you do?
Ph.S: Three times a day! (Laughter)
TA: So no, but seriously, to what degree is it..
Ph.S: Yes, seriously, three times a day.
TA: Was it an exercise in ergonomics..
Ph.S: Oh, yes yes yes, we have to retake measurements, and try a lot of heights; no no no, seriously, I worked on it sincerely, to see what is useful, what is not, and thing like that. Finally, it’s simple. But just to have a stable arm-rest like that, can change everything.
. . .
TA: I read you opened your first company in 1968 in Paris?
Ph.S: Uh, perhaps, yeah.
TA: It seems to be quite a significant date, quite a symbolic year?
Ph.S: Well, ’69 is better! (laughs)
TA: But that year, in terms of the atmosphere in Paris, making the impossible happen..
Ph.S: Strangely, it is much more personal than that. Because I am very schizophrenic; I never go out, I never speak to anybody, I live on a small island, no car, no electricity, no water, it’s like that. But when I was young, it was a lot worse. And one day I said ‘Okay, either I commit suicide, right now, or I go to a psychiatric hospital, or I must make something.’
And the first thing was to decide to create, because it’s the only thing finally I know how to do, and perhaps I am invisible, but if I create something perhaps people will see me, I shall exist in the eyes of the people in front of me.
TA: And the purpose of the company was. .
Ph.S: Just to oblige me to go out from my dark hole.
TA: Well, it’s worked!
Ph.S: It worked, a little too much! Because since this time, I never had one minute for me, I travel one million kilometres by air, and I am very happy, because as Art Director of the Virgin Galactique we shall go to space but also we shall use the technology to go to Japan in two hours. Perhaps we shall save a little time this way
TA: And so that’s Virgin Galactic?
Ph.S: I am art director, means I manage the spirit of the company, the graphic works, the rocket, the space port… I am excited about the democratisation of space, because before space was owned by military people and now, it’s everybody.
TA: And so where does the first flight go?
Ph.S: Into space and come back, the first one is (whistles up and down)
TA: Wow, so that must be really exciting to be involved with that.. level of technology..
Ph.S: Yes because you know, it‘s interesting because it’s real strong first blood, it‘s no more fashion, not like the mainstream conversation in Paris or at dinner, in the city, its no more Sex in the City, it’s going into Space. It’s a big image.
TA: It doesn’t get much bigger. And how does that, the idea of wide open possibility, the idea of space, how does that inspire you?
Ph.S: Well you know it’s a new thing that interest me, not space but how animals see space, the biology which goes with the astrophysics, the mathematics, the quantum mathematics and thing like that, that’s my DNA. My father had aircraft company; I was raised with this idea. My normal life is in that; the mistake is the design!
TA: Did you work with your father or was it just something that was around?
Ph.S: No it was around, it was just my way of thinking.
TA: Do you think that has inspired your design earlier and this is a natural..
Ph.S: Oh, clearly, clearly. 5f you see a plane, you must create it, if you don’t want this plane go down, you must be rigorous. I try to be creative, I try to be rigorous.
TA: I think that space is a good way to wrap up…
