In September, we made our annual pilgrimage to the Maison&Objet trade show, the highlight of the lifestyle, decoration and design calendar. And this year, we put on a big Exhibition (with a capital E) just for you. Intrigued? Rémi, Marion and Jean-Louis played their part, as did other talented members of our team. Here’s their report…

Fermob’s Exhibition

The idea was to create an experience for all the senses – for you, the #FermobPeople, and for visitors in general. We wanted to showcase the brand – and our new colours, furniture and textiles – in a different light. “We staged the products just as we would for an exhibition, like you’d see in a museum,” explains space designer Rémi. According to Marion, our visual merchandiser who (among other things) is in charge of set design for Fermob’s stands, the idea was to “immerse visitors in our world and make them forget everything that had gone before”.

« Perched up high»

“Our products, like our Flying Balad, were affixed to the walls, defying the laws of gravity. We hung our mood visuals like paintings, and there were aerial sculptures throughout the space.” For you, our visitors, the layout meant you could contemplate our works (artworks, in fact) and browse our collections at your own pace.

Des 

Talent in spades

The Exhibition featured three temporary, delightfully named sculptures that drew the eye from afar: Luxembourg In The Air, Starlet Lorette and Surprising Gravity, each comprising chairs from the respective collections. Jean-Louis, our Head of Special Contracts Projects (or Stunning Contracts, as we like to call them), explains how the project came about. “Taking a creative idea and making it come to life: that’s what we do best (that’s our expertise, in fact!),” says Jean-Louis. “It required plenty of imagination, and a touch of madness, but Fermob has both of those things in spades! The brand loves taking items of furniture and doing something different with them – on a monumental scale. We proved that when we made an Eiffel Tower out of Bistro chairs back in 2014!”

Nicolas, our prototypist and expert in designing unique pieces, spent a full 60 hours welding the chairs together. We had to fix a pulley to the factory ceiling to simulate the conditions at the Maison&Objet show. “We put a huge amount of tailor-made work into the 2019 Fermob Exhibition,” adds Jean-Louis. “We can build on that to cater to special requests from our customers.” A word to the wise!

A human endeavour

“Behind every table and every chair, there are people and know-how,” stresses Marion. The making-of film we screened at Maison&Objet, which visitors could watch through tiny holes in the wall of our Exhibition stand, showed our talented people in action. And those portraits hanging on the walls in three new colour chart tones: Ice Mint, Frosted Lemon and Clay Grey? They weren’t models. They were real people, just like you and me.

An Exhibition – and a community

Fermob is about furniture, but that’s not all! It’s also about community, about sharing great experiences with great people. “Taking special care of our customers, making them happy, surprising them, giving them something to get excited about – that’s our mantra!” says Marion.

Ice cream and flowers

If you were lucky enough to visit our 2019 Fermob Exhibition, you’ll recall that we were serving ice creams in our three new colour chart tones (and we saw plenty of you licking your lips!). Visitors also had a chance to contribute to a collective artwork that grew and evolved as the day progressed: a green wall made from small bunches of dried flowers. We also had our very own Polaroid camera – or Polamob’ as we like to call it – so visitors could snap themselves at our Exhibition.

In a nutshell, our stand at Maison&Objet 2019 wasn’t really a stand at all. It was a star attraction, generating a real buzz. It definitely had that special something… As Marion says: “When it comes to staging our products, we’re always trying to push the boundaries”. And it was a resounding success!