If ever the Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester and her husband Patrick Robyn – who is also her long-term creative partner – have a yen for something new, they simply make it. ‘We are surrounded by things that we made ourselves,’ she says. ‘It always starts with the idea of something we would love to have, or that we are dreaming of, or that we want to explore.’
Whether it involves the designer teaching herself to throw a porcelain bowl or Robyn, a former photographer, getting out his woodworking tools to fashion a table, the most satisfying moment is, says Demeulemeester, when ‘we discover that not only have we created something that has purpose and meaning for us, but for other people, too’.
Luckily for us, this deeply personal approach to design is threaded throughout the couple’s brand-new furniture collection, launching this month, which has been made in collaboration with Belgian lifestyle brand Serax.
Following the success of Demeulemeester’s debut home collection with Serax in late 2019, here each of the furniture range’s 25 pieces, including sofas, armchairs, tables and stools, has been created according to the couple’s own exacting, hand-crafted standards.
It was during lockdown that the couple thought about making a sofa for themselves, adding to previous designs such as the ‘Cici’ table Robyn had produced to display Demeulemeester’s porcelain – its top covered in a painter’s canvas (a recurring material in their retinue).
Seeing this, Serax encouraged them to keep designing. ‘First we made little maquettes – like tiny sculptures – to understand the shape and form, and then, once the proportions were right, we started to create the actual pieces in real size, working alongside a local carpenter in his atelier,’ explains Demeulemeester.
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The collection plays with geometric shapes, blocks of colour and symmetrical simplicity. While the rounded ‘Boho’ chair is ‘very sculptural, strong, with a massive volume,’ the needle-thin legs of the ‘Eloïs’ table or ‘Elé’ dining chair – ‘reminiscent of the legs of artist Louise Bourgeois’s spiders’ – provide a noted contrast.
The ‘Ono’ chair, boxy and solid, with a tilted back and its base slung low to appear as if floating, is perfect for ‘reading, eating, playing and relaxing ’, says Demeulemeester. ‘It was also important for us that this chair be beautiful from all sides – seeing the back can be really sexy to me, like with clothes.’
Dedicated to every detail, the couple have even developed their own fabrics, working with Flemish weavers on linens and a special velvet that stays matte and flat when you stroke it. Colours are also all hand-picked – alongside classic shades that include black, white, ecru and grey, there is also a burnt reddish-orange (‘like bringing a beautiful, soft, warm sun into the house’), a luxurious lilac (‘especially sophisticated when mixed with black linen and dark, shiny tulipwood’) and a deep, earthy green (‘the colour of the ferns in our countryside garden’).
Early variations of the salon-style ‘Frou’ sofa, with its low backrest and fringed bottom, are already in situ as part of the couple’s recent makeover of the Ann Demeulemeester flagship store in Antwerp (Demeulemeester stepped down as head designer of the fashion brand in 2013 to pursue other interests, but has been brought back in to consult by the brand’s new owner and long-term fan, Claudio Antonioli), and even more pieces are making their way into Serax’s gallery-like headquarters, also in Antwerp.
Each design can be customised in different woods, fabrics and colours – an element of choice that was very important to Demeulemeester. ‘We don’t all want the same furniture. It’s a very intimate thing, so it has to be right for you,’ she explains. ‘My grandfather often said that your nest is important. I always remember that, because he’s so right.’ From £114 for a tray, serax.com
