One million dazed Parisians wandered through seven halls worth of home improvement possibilities at the Foire de Paris -- a huge, overwhelming 12-day annual trade fair for the home -- earlier this month at the ugly Porte de Versailles convention center.
Visitors spent an average of 450 euros on furniture, decoration and equipment for the kitchen, bath, garden, pool, wine cave and every aspect of the home. Some chose merely to look, and to dream...
And what better place to do that than the futuristic home improvement utopia of Hall 7, where the finalists for the Grand Prix de L’Innovation introduced cutting edge products from French and international brands, rewarding innovation, design and technology for kitchen, bath and household appliances.
Dyson presented its mini powerhouse of a vacuum cleaner, the 4 kg, 35 x 25 x 20 cm DC12, introduced in Japan a few years ago. Singer France was showing off its Samba, a 21st-century iron that magically rises up on tiptoe when you lay it flat, to avoid “I Love Lucy”-style iron burns on your dress shirts.
The French lingerie queen Chantal Thomass’ washing machine -- looking a bit tarty in pink-and-black boudoir buttoned upholstery motifs -- has special settings for lingerie. “Vedette,” the French word for starlet, is a limited edition from Fagor Brandt, and one of the 300 machines can be reserved here.
But the thing that had all the small space dwellers drooling was the good-looking, compact Espalux Expansion all-in-one-square-meter kitchen (“Tout en un m2”), pre-wired and equipped with a combo oven, sink, undersink dishwasher, mini-fridge, stovetop and counterspace. Ready to install, all you have to do is decide on the customized decor.
(And why not this blown up digital image of an irresistible orange flower?)
- Kristin Hohenadel blogging from rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, France. She can be reached at kristin.hohenadel @ gmail . com
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
This post gives us a feel for the atmosphere and energy of the Foire de Paris -- the throng of "one million dazed Parisians", the ugly Porte de Versailles convention center, the gazillion euros spent, as well as highlights of some pretty and not so pretty new products. (not just product promo but assessments such as the "tarty" lingerie washing machine and useful coverage of the all-one-square-meter kitchen). Makes us feel we were pratically there.
That's what's missing in the ICFF posts so far.
Excellent job, Kristin!
view gekko's profile
"inhabitdebutantes" all over the world would love to know...
view ion/?/'s profile
Damn those crafty Europeans... They are so fortunate to not be limited by the provential ways of the boring Americans...
It never fails, all the cool stuff (design wise) isn't available to Americans until it is already old news around the rest of the world.
view Devyn's profile
J'aime beaucoup the whole idea of photo laminates like that orange flower one, and it seems that THAT idea was on AT a year or two ago. Would love to see a re-post of that, by the way.
view Curtis's profile
I love this Indesit washer, reminds me of a giant i-pod...
the mini-kitchen is cool, too, though i really wonder if the dishwasher would be necessary. There's just enough storage for a strict minimum and no real risk to be able to prepare a dinner for more than, let's say a maximum of four persons, so i think it is managable to do the dishwashing manually. Otherwise, nice compact kitchen.
view Jany's profile
That flower-power kitchen is great! I just read an
article about how American homes are getting bigger
and bigger...just like their derrières. Reminds me that
the rest of the world is not obsessed with "more."
view VeryKim's profile
It's beautiful!
I adore it!
How/where can I purchase it?
I live in New York.
Also, I would appreciate any other stylish compact kitchens you would recommend.
view mmorningstar's profile