★ Maison&Objet Paris

01Warum es relevant ist

Two editions a year, five days each, and a very large share of Europe's independent interiors retail buying passes through them. For the studios and small manufacturers who exhibit, M&O is the difference between a business and a hobby, and for the trade it is the calendar's most efficient week: the halls are big, the sectors are clearly divided, and nobody is there for the party. In our reading, the January edition is the more commercially serious of the two and the September one the more interesting to visit, because Paris Design Week gives it a public dimension the fair itself deliberately lacks.

02Die Woche darum

In January the fair sits alone; Paris in the third week of the month is quiet, cold and cheap by its own standards, and the fair's visitors are the only thing filling the northern hotels. September is different. Paris Design Week fills the Marais, Saint-Germain, the Bastille furniture quarter along the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and the newer design streets of the 10th and 11th with showroom openings and installations, most of them free. The Mobilier National, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the design galleries of the Left Bank all program against it. Paris Fashion Week follows at the end of September, which is a separate event and a separate audience.

03Anreisezeitpunkt

For the fair, come in on the Wednesday evening and give Villepinte a full day on the Thursday or Friday, when the halls are busiest but the exhibitors are freshest; Sunday and Monday are quieter and better for talking. For Paris Design Week, arrive on the opening Thursday and stay through the first weekend, when the showroom programmes are complete and the openings happen. Three nights covers both if you are efficient about the RER.

04Unterkunft

Stay in Paris, not near the fair. The hotels around Roissy and Villepinte are convenient and joyless, and the RER B from central Paris reaches the exhibition centre in about thirty-five minutes. The Marais and the 11th put you inside the September design programme; Saint-Germain covers the Left Bank galleries; the 9th and 10th around Gare du Nord shorten the RER journey and are well supplied with places to eat. During Paris Design Week the city is busy but not full, and rooms are available much later than for fashion week.

05Zugang und Hospitality

Maison&Objet is trade only. Admission requires a professional badge, obtained by registering in advance with evidence of a design, decoration or lifestyle business; the fair is not open to the general public on any day. Paris Design Week, by contrast, is free and open to everyone, with the great majority of its programme requiring neither ticket nor registration. Some showroom events during the city week are by invitation through the brands themselves. The fair publishes no hospitality tiers.

06Wo das gesellschaftliche Geschehen stattfindet

During the September week, the design streets carry it: the Marais around Rue de Turenne and Rue Charlot, Saint-Germain around Rue de Lille and Rue Bonaparte for the twentieth-century dealers, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine for the furniture trade, and the cafés and wine bars of the 10th and 11th in the evenings. At Villepinte itself the social life is the fair's own restaurants and the RER platform. In January there is no city programme, and the trade eats in Paris proper.

07Anreise

08Praktische Hinweise

09Geschichte

The fair is organized by SAFI, which sits between the French crafts federation and a commercial exhibition group, and it grew out of the French decorative arts and gift trades rather than out of furniture manufacturing. That inheritance still shows in the balance of the halls, where tableware, scent, textiles and small objects occupy as much space as furniture. Its scale by the late 2010s was substantial: the September 2018 edition recorded 3,112 exhibitors from 72 countries and 119,633 visitors. Paris Design Week was added later as a way of extending the fair's reach into the city, and it has grown into the more visible of the two events among the general public.

10Wer ist dort

Retail buyers and store owners, in very large numbers and from across Europe; interior designers and architects specifying for private and hospitality projects; hotel and restaurant procurement; agents, distributors and importers; and the exhibiting studios and manufacturers themselves. Paris Design Week in September broadens this considerably, adding the general public, students and the design press to the same days.