Charlotte Chesnais, We are ONA, The Experimental Group, Pauline Vincent are the next generation of French creatives
These Paris-based creatives all excel at pushing boundaries, reinterpreting the foundations of French culture in highly original ways.
Charlotte Chesnais
In a city brimming with fine jewellery institutions, the French designer Charlotte Chesnais stands out for her distinct design signature. Chesnais’s sculptural designs, beautiful objects in their own right, are crafted in precious metals that interact with the body, spiralling and stacking around the wrists, fingers and earlobes.
Her career kicked off with her working alongside Nicolas Ghesquière during his cultish tenure at Balenciaga, though she quickly emerged as a star in her own right with her namesake brand — for which she now has two boutiques, one in the 1st arrondissement and a new one in Saint Germain — while also consulting for the likes of A.P.C. and Paco Rabanne. Chesnais has also worked with Ben Gorman, Jacquemus and Loro Piana, to name a few.
Fans seek out her boldly graphic creations crafted in yellow gold, although her work with pearls, brightly coloured enamel and, more recently, colourful hand-blown glass reveals the breadth of her artistry.
Luca Pronzato, We Are ONA
Since 2019, Luca Pronzato, the Paris-based founder of the itinerant culinary studio
We Are ONA, has created more than 500 ephemeral dining events worldwide. The ONA experiences run the gamut from a week-long menu by new-gen talents such as the French Michelin-starred chef Mory Sacko, held in the financial district of New York, or a tasting menu conceived by Danish chef Mathias Degn, served in a former water tank in Basel, Switzerland.
There have also been lengthier restaurant-based residencies set up in destinations as far-reaching as Kaplankaya in Turkey and Mexico City. Pronzato, who has a Catalan mother and an Italian father, cut his teeth at Noma in Copenhagen before launching this neo-dining concept, driven by a desire to create unforgettable experiences and highlight a roster of emerging young talent.
In Paris, pop-ups are a regular affair and are often held in private addresses that take you behind the scenes of hard-to-access places in the city, so check the website for their up-to-date calendar.
Pauline Vincent, La Romaine Editions
Former fashion buyer Pauline Vincent pays tribute to blissful memories of home and family in her collection of curated objects for her company La Romaine Editions – available online and from the Rive Gauche institution Le Bon Marché.
The tableware and decorative objects she creates with a raft of artisans and artists are named after her multigenerational family summer home in Vaison-la-Romaine in Provence and reveal her appreciation for craftsmanship and the poetry of daily life and rituals. Every few months, Vincent releases a new selection of objects – commissioned around a specific theme such as a season, colour, or time of day – that personify the charm of the French tablescape.
Marc Beaugé, Gauthier Borsarello and Basile Khadiry
Menswear, in the French fashion capital, can be a convoluted high-low affair, but there are three local male figures and collaborators setting the tone who are worth following. Marc Beaugé, Gauthier Borsarello and Basile Khadiry are the creators of the men’s style bible, l’étiquette (note, they just started a women’s issue, too) — a biannual tome that offers a neat and savvy guide to everyday elegance. The magazine’s brand of timeless style finds its alchemy in a mix of streetwear and tailoring that promises to be perpetually cool.
All three men are unparalleled dressers, and their individual expertise only strengthens the trio: Beaugé is an author and journalist and the local authority on men’s style, Borsarello is the creative director of the French brand Fursac and a vintage aficionado whose store Le Vif is worth a visit, as is Khadiry’s multi-brand boutique, Beige Habilleur.
Experimental Group
It’s been a monumental rise for close friends Olivier Bon, Pierre-Charles Cros and Romée De Goriainoff since they established their cult Parisian drinking hole, the Experimental Cocktail Club, in 2007.
With the help of a fourth partner, Xavier Padovani, they’ve opened more wine bars, but also restaurants and hotels all over the world, including Paris, New York, London, Ibiza, Menorca, Venice and Verbier – each of them fitted out by Bon’s wife, the French interior designer, Dorothée Meilichzon.
The latest addition to the group’s portfolio is the Art Nouveau grand dame, hotel Regina Experimental Biarritz, perched on the clifftop of the Basque surf town. The new hotel combines everything Experimental does best under one roof: luxury design in the form of eye-catching interiors and an unbeatable vibe, in this case, courtesy of the restaurant Frenchie.
The food is by chef Gregory Marchand, who brings his twist to local Basque cuisine via dishes such as Banka trout, Gascon black pork and line-caught fish from Saint-Jean de Luz. To top it off, there is a legacy-worthy hotel bar complete with a grand piano set under a 15-metre-high glass atrium.
More Coverage
