BOUDOIR NOUVEAU
What
An installation to consider the importance given to beauty, inspired by the historical boudoir - which has indeed been often assimilated because of males' speculations to throes of passion or later on to a dressing room - leading to a space charged with sexuality and female empowerment before its disappearance.
At the end, boudoirs have been designed to answer a physical need (the need of privacy) and have evolved until being almost forgotten since this need was largely fulfilled in everybody's daily lives.
Why
Beauty has largely been commodified and attention paid to the care of the self is mainly considered as superficial and decorative. Yet, we remain preoccupied with it as a representation of the self, rather than a constitutive part of oneself.
Eventually, this room aims to acknowledge the image that shapes us.
How
The skin is used as an element that symbolises the relationship between our inner and outer self and compose the furnitures as if each piece has shed off its own image.
"Finally, an intimate space to reconcile our inner and outer self"
composition
BOUDOIR
Like the traditional boudoir before, Boudoir Nouveau stands as a statement. Rather than claiming a need of intimacy, it calls for the necessity to approach the notion of appearance from another angle.
The traditional boudoir presents basic furnitures however extremely luxurious : Sits, tables, mouldings, parquet floor. Here the same elements are used but approached from the thematic of the image of the body, therefor this room present organic shapes, skins tones and textures.
Besides, those elements relate to the richness of the surface with giant illustrated curtains and a set of furnitures covered with thin layers of latex ending as large paddles of skin.
TEXTURES
SKIN
The skin is used as an element that symbolises the relationship between our inner and outer self. Using her own skin tones, Marine Lottermoser furnishes her boudoir with images of furnitures.
The furnitures are inspired by exuviaes, which are sheds of animals meaning the exact copy of the animal. At the end, an exact but very fragile structure stays but not its function, communicating its nature.
The intention lies in the idea that the image of an object stands as a capital information in the construction of the object's identity, as much as a human being.
The furnitures present various skin's close-ups and offer an idea of the richness of the skin full of details and textures.
Pictures : Marine Lottermoser©
Dutch design Week 2018
G18 - design Academy Eindhoven
A room for the body
“It is not that the world is becoming substantially more beautiful. It is becoming a world of beauty in the sense that everything is seen in an aesthetic mode: the way to dress, think, exist, act, and judge. It is the triumph of beauty…that everything can be aestheticised.”
Yves Michaud
Beauty occupies a central role within our society, yet our cultural condition often denies its significance. Boudoir Nouveau questions the notion of beauty, its ideals, and its mechanisms of influence, as well as our hypocritical relationship to its effects. It delves into the differences between beauty and perfection and between aesthetic appreciation and narcissism, echoing back our perceptions of our selves and our bodies. Ultimately, this project aims to reframe the appearance as a legitimately meaningful, complex, and nuanced element in the construction of identity.
The dermis, or skin, becomes a source of visual inspiration that bridges between us and our physical and social context. The skin is redefined as a space of intimacy and reconciliation between our inner and outer selves, expressing the ultimate design of the self—the creation of a singularity within an environment that encourages conformity. Embracing the uniqueness of this notion of identity, the project becomes immersed in the territory of the body through techniques of perception and sensation.
Copy editing: Tamar Shafrir