“We both love roundness and how it feels very feminine, very feng shui. So that’s why most of our pieces are very round and smooth. And the leather is super sleek, and buttery when you touch it, you really feel the quality-like a piece of art. It creates an emotion.”
Parisian interior designer Géraldine Boublil teams up with Jessica Solnicki to launch artisan furniture line Things.From.
BY CADE CALLEN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LULIA MATTEI
HER PHILOSOPHY IS TO DRESS your room the way you dress yourself. Meet Géraldine Boublil, founder of Things.From, an interior design firm blurring the lines between fashion, home furniture, and art. Hailing from Paris, Boublil along with her fellow Buenas Aires based business partner Jessica Slonecki want to make timeless furniture that evokes an emotional connection akin to the magical experience of falling in love with a sculpture from the Rodin Museum.
“Both (fashion and interior design) are really connected with emotions, what you feel wearing and what you feel your interior to look like,” Boublil tells me over Zoom from her home in Paris. Geraldine is bringing her vision, focus, and passion for material craftsmanship that she gained from an illustrious career in the fashion industry (Dior, Givenchy, and Ralph Lauren— just to name a few) to the world of interior design. She’s no stranger to running a business; after working at some of the most famous fashion houses in the world, she launched her own shoe brand called Erin Adamson and has a growing following on Instagram which she treats as a spin off of her lifestyle blog erinoffduty. She even teaches courses in digital communication to graduate students at Istituto Marangoni in Paris.
Boublil and Solnicki’s brainchild, from a product perspective, appears to be a straightforward furniture company with items consisting of the highest grade materials, crafted by local artisans from all over the world. However, from a business perspective, things.from represents a creative bridge between fashion and interior design. The brand’s pioneering mission was “to launch interior pieces using materials and ideas from the fashion world–mixing both worlds through material combinations, symmetry, mixing textures, and shapes.” When I ask her what she means she elaborates, “A good example would be to create a chair for Chanel out of the tweed material from their famous tweed jackets.” It’s as if she is taking celebrated garments from the past and reincarnating them into furniture.
Things.From’s debut product, The Stool One, crafted from wood from Patagonia and leather from La Pampa.
Their design process is disarmingly casual, at times even beginning spontaneously over a night out for dinner. Similar to Boublil, Solnicki has roots in fashion– having created and man- aged her own New York based fashion company for eight years. After selling the company, she set her sights on teaching herself interior design and furniture manufacturing. The cross pollination of their tastes and skill sets lend Things.From its unique flair which shines brightly in their debut product: The Stool One. The design of the stool is markedly futuristic, as if it could fit in a chic spaceship just as well as your living room. Yet its materials, the natural wood from Patagonia and the leather from La Pampa, suggest its roots in time tested craftsmanship. Their partnership with the metaverse company Sandbox shows that they have their eyes toward the future in more ways than one. Villa Issaka, their digital event venue in the metaverse, acts as showroom where things.from furniture can be collected as NFT’s.
When I ask Boublil what her governing design philosophy is, she says she follows her feelings. She elucidates her influences in an abstract way, not necessarily citing certain figures, or eras of design that have impacted her, but rather she discusses shapes, textures, materials that she draws inspiration from.
“We both love roundness and how it feels very feminine, very feng shui. So that’s why most of our pieces are very round and smooth. And the leather is super sleek, and buttery and when you touch it, you really feel the quality– like a piece of art. It creates an emotion.” Boublil’s passion for interior design was sparked by her parents buying a house by an architect with an obsession with 70’s interiors. Her taste then broadened to antiques and vintage markets; however, her first endeavor into making furniture herself came in the pursuit of the perfect coffee table. “I had a coffee table made because I couldn’t find my dream one. I had a massive wood cube and had it covered with some cherry color ostrich leather and it became a center piece in the living room.”
Fast forward to 2023, Things.From had their first exhibition at London Crafts Week. “Next, we’ll be open to selling in Parisian concept stores. In 2024 we are currently in discussion with fashion houses for new collaborations and we are planning a very innovative project for the upcoming Paris Design Week in September.” @things.from DTM