PAMPERING
AN INVESTIGATION INTO MODERN FURNITURE

The Bulletin de la Vie artistique has launched a very timely investigation into modern furniture among furniture designers themselves. Rightly struck by the fact that one cannot invent "popular furniture" because what the common people covet is what, among the wealthy, seems to be a sign of comfort and wealth, the Bulletin asks whether luxury furniture made from other materials could not constitute a "paragon of modern manufacturing."
Several furniture designers have already responded to this question, including Mr. Ruhlmann, who seems to me to have particularly insightful views on the matter.
"The movement toward period art in decoration and modern furniture," he replies, "will only fully develop to the extent that the mass represented by the middle class is interested in a fashion established by the wealthy elite." If this elite, which alone can afford the studies and research of the first establishment, is not won over and satisfied, this movement is likely to fail, as the masses are unable, in the present as in the past, to impose their tastes."
This is only too true, especially since the other elite, by which I mean the less wealthy, inevitably remains relegated to the background, as they are used to it, outside the debate.

After which, Mr. Ruhlmann moves on to technical considerations:
"Let us be very careful not to renew forms from year to year, as couturiers change fashions. Furniture is not seasonal, and in this, no less than in anything else, it is necessary that there be evolution and not a frequently renewed revolution. We must not create something new at all costs and without regard for practicality and comfort..." ...In the future, let us multiply our research, but with more simplicity. It seems, looking at the Decorative Arts Exhibition, that richness has often been confused with ornamentation."
One could not have said it better.

Louis LEON-MARTIN