A meeting of minds

Designing a timeless classic while firmly anchoring it in its own era. Such is the ambitious challenge that Pierre-Yves Rochon seems to have embraced through his collaboration with Maison Charles. A natural encounter from which the Collectionneur collection was born.

“I don’t have a style”, the designer insists. “Certainly not. Nor do I bow to the whims of fashion. Why confine yourself to a trend that will soon be replaced by another? It’s terribly limiting and terribly dull. Creativity knows neither time nor borders!” Few statements could better encapsulate the spirit of the Collectionneur collection: a series of luminaires firmly rooted in the present while resonating with both the past and the future.

The story began in 2019, during AD Intérieurs, when Pierre-Yves Rochon turned to Maison Charles to bring this first lamp to life. Although the collaboration officially started then, it was in fact rooted in a much longer-standing admiration. “Bringing together the brilliance of a designer’s vision with the reality of craftsmanship. ­Allowing a drawn object to retain the full intention of its creator. That is what Charles has done since its origins, and what Pierre-Yves Rochon values most about our house”, explains ­Nicolas Beaufour.

To bring the project to fruition, the interior architect turned to Maison Charles, one of France’s great names in the decorative arts. Since 1908, the company has cultivated a distinctive identity balancing ancestral craftsmanship with innovation. Over the course of its long history, this master of lighting has created a catalogue of nearly 1,500 models, all imagined and crafted in its workshops just outside Paris by highly skilled chasers, turners, assemblers, founders, decorators and marble artisans.

A few years later, when Nicolas ­Beaufour proposed adding the original creation to the Maison Charles catalogue, Pierre-Yves Rochon replied enthusiastically: “At last—you’ve understood!” From that moment, what had begun as a single design evolved into a true collection. The first lamp, originally created for AD Intérieurs under the name Collectionneur, became the Modern model. The two men then developed the Classic, followed by the Column, which combines the defining characteristics of the first two. At the same time, the Modern’s original brass cabochon was replaced with one in alabaster. Collectionneur has since become the name of the collection, comprising the Modern, Classic and Column models.

An entire team brought Pierre-Yves Rochon’s vision to life around an altogether different kind of trinity. At the heart of all three lamps lies alabaster. Also known as onyx marble, this crystalline limestone possesses the remarkable ability to diffuse light. Its softly translucent quality, enhanced by delicate pale yellow and ochre veining, creates ethereal, dreamlike patterns. Thanks to the natural irregularities of the stone, every lamp is entirely unique.

The Collectionneur collection comprises three models. The Modern, the first design in the trio, adopts a refined aesthetic that reinterprets the codes of Maison Charles. Available in black and white, it is crowned with a particularly understated alabaster cabochon. The Classic is lower in profile and embellished with delicately knurled mouldings, characteristic of the house’s turning expertise, together with a pinecone-shaped finial that recalls the ornamentation of the grand bronze tradition. Finally, the Column, at the crossroads of these two aesthetics, expresses a more contemporary spirit through its slender silhouette while remaining deeply rooted in the history of Maison Charles thanks to its lampshade and brass cabochon.

Signed and numbered, these three exceptional pieces invite endless variations of light. Each can illuminate its surroundings either through its alabaster body or through its fabric lampshade, allowing atmospheres to shift from intimate to radiant ­according to the occasion or the ­desired mood. Conceived for exceptional settings, from luxury hospitality to private residences, the ­Collectionneur collection offers a new vision of decorative lighting. •

Photos : Process, Charles • © L. Casanova • Collectionneur Lamp, Charles x Pierre-Yves Rochon, Classic model • © Joel Vogt