Haute Couture Televisions
French start-up Hipolite combines design and high performance technology in a range of entirely customizable televisions in a haute couture approach that aims to transform the humble TV into a decorative object.
The TV set is still however a standardised and commonplace industrial product. The images on the screen may be of better quality, but it is a soulless object with no intrinsic emotional or aesthetic value. With the Serif TV, designed by the Bouroullec brothers, South Korean manufacturer Samsung aims to put the TV on equal footing with the rest of our furniture. “What we were looking for was a solid presence that would sit naturally in any environment, just like a piece of furniture”, the star designers explained.
Hipolite’s young team’s starting point was almost the same, but they came up with an original solution. Hipolite’s founder, Jean Barbier, remembers how he first had the idea: “Five years ago, I was in a magnificent chalet which had been very elegantly renovated. I couldn’t help noticing how the TV stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the fine materials used in this beautiful interior. Surely there was more to be done than simply putting the screen into a piece of furniture, or fixing it to the wall.”
He knocked up a wooden frame so that the screen blended into the chalet interior and the idea was born: approaching the TV with customization in mind and thereby propose solutions to meet the needs of every customer. Jean’s encounter with designers Guillaume Suety and Aurélien Blanc, as well as the interior designer, Julien Dayet, enabled him to fine tune the concept.
They wanted: “To turn the world of televisions upside down by imagining a modern day remake of the cathode-ray tube sets of the 70s.” A fan of vintage designs, Jean Barbier hasn’t forgotten the crazy look of Continental Edison’s cult television with its plastic case and tulip-shaped base. “A magnificent piece and a luxury object.”
(By Maison-Objet.com)
