A taste of summer with the finalists of Design Parade Hyères & Toulon

As spring slowly settles in a Paris still numb from the cold, it is a southern heat that we cannot refuse. This week, Villa Noailles presented the finalists of its two major events, Design Parade Hyères (design) & Toulon (interior design). While the festival will be held from June 28 to July 1, Jean-Pierre Blanc unveiled at the Palais de Tokyo the ten finalists of each edition, a group of young designers and interior designers from France, Canada, Portugal, Belgium or the United States. Guests like Sophie Fontanel, Anna Klossowski (from the collective We Do Not Work Alone that we met recently) or Didier Grumbach not only got to be acquainted with the work of these young talents but also to discover the programme of exhibitions that will be organized in both cities throughout the summer. They also got to meet the members of the two juries: in particular Philippe Malouin, Anglo-Canadian designer and winner of the Designer of the Year Award by Wallpaper and ELLE Déco, who chairs the jury of Design Parade Hyères. He will also present an exhibition on the fringe of the festival. This year’s festival has a very international jury composed notably of the Bouroullec brothers, curators Alexandra Cunningham Cameron (New York) and Maria-Cristina Didero (Milan) or the latest Grand Prix Design Parade winner, Carolien Niebling. As for interior design, Pierre Yovanovitch chairs the jury of Design Parade Toulon alongside Mathieu Lehanneur, AD Germany’s editor-in-chief Simone Herrmann, and Pascale Mussard, who is president of Villa Noailles. The jury was able to count on the support of Vincent Darré, (2017 jury president) to select its finalists. In a scenography by Mathilde Vallantin Dulac and Victor Levai (Design Parade Toulon 2017 public prize), we immerse ourselves in the finalists’ work and dream of the beautiful summer days to come… at Villa Noailles, of course.