There’s a definite hint of the 1970s in Roche Bobois’s spring-summer collection, which was showcased earlier this month on a grey February day in Paris. Earth colours featured strongly – brown, russet, mustard, ochre – and, when married with the French brand’s signature curvy shapes, plump upholstery and scaled-up dimensions, the effect is pure luxury, a world away from the austerity of that decade.
If one piece encapsulates the look, it’s Maurizio Manzoni’s vast A-propos low-slung modular sofa, shown in a cavernous room setting, upholstered in wool bouclé – two white versions, one mustard – with backrests that can be moved to make lounging on the deep seats even more comfortable and sociable. The discreetly bevelled dark wood platform base gives the substantial piece of furniture an airy elegance.
At the helm of the company, which has a global reach, is Nicolas Roche, who had worked as an architect for nearly 20 years before joining the family firm in 2005 when its founders, his uncle and father, signalled it was time for them to step down. Looking at the A-propos sofas, he agrees that such a large piece of furniture will not be for every market.
“This one will sell more in the US, where the houses are much bigger; it will not sell in Japan,” he deadpans, though he says buyers, including Irish buyers, tend to be the same in terms of taste and style. “When a product is a hit, it is a hit everywhere,” he says. “The Bubble [sofa] is the most popular in the world and also in Ireland. [Design] educated people around the world read the same magazines, the same trends arrive in the world at the same time.”
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The Bubble sofa, designed in 2014, has become a contemporary classic and the three-seater – the most popular option in Ireland – retails here for €5,730.
What is striking about Roche Bobois as a brand is the number of designers, often trained architects, it works with on each collection. For spring-summer, Roche says it is about a dozen, a diverse range of sensibilities and approaches that nevertheless work to present an aesthetic that perfectly reflects the chic, playful brand. It’s a testament to Roche’s direction and market savvy.
Some of the other striking new pieces that should live long beyond this season include Christian Ghion’s Sumito coffee table – a curved triangle of glass sitting on three chrome balls; Bruno Moinard’s Rio Ipanema low-slung, solidly retro sideboard; and Bina Baitel’s Reminiscence collection featuring a curved bean-shaped sideboard and desk in textured oak sitting on spare brass legs. Roche describes her collection as “a good balance between modernity and classicism”. Later in the year, the designer will present the sofa she has designed for Roche Bobois, saying that it has been five years in the design process and is now reaching the point where she is working on fabric choices. Her first commission for the brand was 10 years ago when she designed a lamp which went on to win an award; the sofa, for a company known for its sofas, will be an ambition realised.
As well as entirely new pieces, this season Roche has gone back to pieces that have worked and proven popular and extended the range in terms of fabrics and colours or developed additional items, as with Marcel Wanders’ best-selling and quirky L’Aventure Intérieure range which now includes an extravagantly curvy bed, new lamps and rugs.
And while many furniture makers have looked to China to cut production costs, Roche is resolutely Eurocentric. Furniture manufacturing for the brand is divided between Italy (60 per cent), France (20 per cent) and Portugal (20 per cent). So you’re not making in China? “Never,” he says firmly, looking slightly shocked at the very idea, “though we may work with Chinese designers.”
Roche says that when his father and uncle founded the company, they hit upon franchising as a way of spreading into new markets. Indeed it came to Ireland by way of a franchise, when Dorothy and John Power opened up a Roche Bobois showroom in Sandyford in South Dublin in 2007. When in recent years they signalled their desire to step back from the business, the company decided to continue in Ireland and took over the showroom. “We still sell well, we still earn money – there is a logic in being in Ireland,” Roche says of the Irish market, adding that customers are overwhelmingly buying for their own homes. “The weak parts are the contract business.”
A significant space in the spring-summer showcase is given over to outdoor furniture including sofas, chairs, pouffes and chaise longues, with all the style and substance of the brand’s indoor furniture and complemented by lacquered resin side tables by Nathanaël Désormeaux and Damien Carrette. Indeed some pieces are outdoor versions of the brand’s sofas, engineered in different materials and finishes to withstand the elements.
Outdoor furniture is, says Roche, a growing market for all luxury furniture brands – it’s something, he says, he has been doing for the past 10 years, as patios and gardens increasingly become extensions of the home’s living areas. He admits, though, that the outdoor ranges are not so popular in Ireland – but that is more likely to be related to weather, and not any lapses in taste.
