Dutch designer in an interview with the magazine SALON about objects from the French collection, about fashion trends in the field of classical furniture and the bright colors of Venice.

Passing the gallery

Materials prepared: Nikolay Fedyanin

Magazine: N (87) 2004

Dutch designer Йос Дондерс (Jos Donders), third-generation decorator and interior designer, heads the company DONDERS-INTERIEUR, existing since 1896. This year at the Cologne Furniture Fair Йос Дондерс showed a collection of modern furniture, based on the furniture styles of two Louis (XV and XVI) for the company BENCH. In an interview with SALON, Donders talks about items from the French collection, fashion trends in classical furniture and the bright colors of Venice.SALON: Tell us how you got the idea to create a French collection? - As you know, BENCH works with the French classic furniture manufacturer PIERRE COUNOT BLANDIN, which, in particular, makes all the wooden parts for items from the Ensemble collection of John Hutton. Trying to combine the classic PIERRE COUNOT BLANDIN style with the more modern BENCH style, I took some specific details of French classical furniture and made them more modern. For example, in the place where the leg of the chair connects to the frame, or at the ends of the armrests of the chairs you see small metal circles. In the furniture of the Louis XV era, in place of these circles, there would have been a flower carved out of wood - this is a characteristic feature of the style of that era. However, the very forms of furniture remained virtually unchanged.S: The combination of black wood and steel looks very modern. It, for example, is very characteristic of the minimalism style ... - You are right and wrong at the same time. Of course, in the era of Louis XVI, the combination of ebony and steel was not in fashion. Although black furniture was made long before the advent of minimalism. Just three hundred years ago, the ebony finish was available to very few. Then, in the wake of the chinoiserie style hobby, it became fashionable to cover the furniture with black lacquer, so the trend itself never died.S: Last year, the well-known Italian manufacturer of classical furniture, SELVA, made the collection in the style of Louis XV also with black lacquer and simpler, smoothed shapes. Is black color and simplicity of lines a new trend in the classics? - I do not think this is a trend. I change the shape, but so that the furniture does not lose its elegance. Baroque French furniture is very elegant, it has beautiful proportions that delight the eye. If you make these lines completely straight, the elegance will disappear, it will be a different style and other emotions. At the same time, I don’t think that you should just copy the style, make exact replicas of antiquities, because we live in a completely different era and use furniture in a different way.S: How is it shown? - In the era of Louis XV furniture was used mostly for decorative purposes. For example, look at the antique dressers. They have narrow shelves, a lot of small boxes, in which it is almost impossible to store large things. Now dressers have wider and deeper drawers. Furniture has become much more practical.S: How modern ideas about comfort fit the classic forms? Do you think the furniture of the Louis XV era is comfortable? - You are right, the furniture of this era is really inconvenient, but not so serious changes are necessary to make it comfortable. For example, when I designed the Bergere chair for this collection, I had to change the angle of the backrest. However, this does not mean that the masters of that era did not think about comfort. The difference is that before people lived quite differently. So, in the time of Louis XV, wide sofas, designed for several people, were not needed. Generally in that era, people sat differently. They came to the ball or to the reception, briefly lowered into the chairs or never sat down at all, but only danced. Then they returned home and immediately went to sleep. In that era, there was no need for armchairs in which you can sit for five or six hours in the same position, because people did not have the habit of watching television in the evenings.S: Do you have a feeling that classic furniture has its own tendencies? How do you think fashion for a particular historical style appears? “In general, the tendency is that when things go down in the economy, people return to the furniture styles of the past in search of stability. During periods of economic prosperity, baroque sentiments and baroque-style furniture with many curlicues and gold dominate. In a situation of economic recession, the style closer to the Empire style prevails: with strong lines, without curlicues, without gold, without unnecessary details. In my opinion, the Baroque dominated five to eight years ago, and now the Empire style prevails. As economic cycles began to replace each other more often, it seems to me that fashion for different styles will change faster.S: Your family is from Tilburg, which was once the center of the Dutch textile industry. Surely textiles are very important to you. What principles did you follow when choosing upholstery for items from your collection? - I'm not afraid to use bright colors. Of course, it is much easier to make everything black, and it is not by chance that many designers dress themselves all black. It is much harder and more interesting to find a color that will fit your senses. With the help of bright colors, I wanted to make this classic furniture more optimistic.S: It seems to me that in the era about which we speak, the color scheme was more official, and now you are doing a kind of home version of the classics ... - Perhaps you are right. However, our ideas about the classics are very different from what it really was. We do not take into account that over the years upholstery tarnishes. Probably, in three hundred years you will also "fade a little": your hair will turn gray and your skin will look different from your youth. Many people who like the classic style don't really know anything about the interiors of the time of Louis XV or Louis XVI. For example, in Holland after the reconstruction of the royal palace, many people came, were surprised at what they saw, and said: "I don't like it anymore." Many people love Venice. But compared to how the city looked in the XV-XVI centuries, modern Venice is just a black and white photograph of that era. If you look at old paintings, you will see how colorful this city was: houses, furniture, clothes ... absolutely everything was full of colors. So when I use bright upholstery, I try to return the furniture to its previous colors and former cheerfulness.