JACQUES ADNET - SOFA

Jacques Adnet, born in Châtillon-Coligny and trained at the École des Arts Décoratifs, refined the language of Art Deco rather than rejecting it, stripping away excess until only proportion, clarity, and material presence remained, work that was at once rational, sensual, functional, and poetic. By the 1920s, as director of the Compagnie des Arts Français, he helped steer French taste toward a quieter modernity, favoring lean silhouettes, geometric restraint, and impeccable craftsmanship while embracing progressive materials like glass, chrome, and mirror, later becoming synonymous with saddle-stitched leather used not as trim but as structure with couture-level precision. His career bridged architecture and design, luxury and industry, producing interiors for embassies and corporate headquarters while creating furniture that carried French savoir-faire into the modern age; his appointment in 1950 as director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and his collaborations with Hermès only deepened this legacy. Now held in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Centre Pompidou, and major international collections, his works endure not as relics but as models of modern French elegance, design that doesn’t shout but resonates, embodying a disciplined line, a reverence for material, and a timeless clarity that still feels contemporary.