Magnum Dining Table

How to make something hulking appear visually light? That was the challenge La Chance gave Pierre Favresse when they charged him with coming up with a dinner table for their inaugural "Jekyll & Hyde" collection. Pierre went with materials that not only conveyed mass. The bulbous shape of the legs and curved table base also express volume. He then delivered on the challenge with a metal cage linking the thick legs to solid top.


Part of the French "nouvelle vague" in design, Pierre's optimistically, streamlined work emphasizes the correlation between traditional craftsmanship and high-tech techniques. Just as integral is the social and environmental concerns in the manufacturing of products. Pierre trained as a cabinet maker before attending the Ecole Nationale SupŽrieure for Decorative Arts, where he now teaches. During this time he also served as studio director for designer Mathieu Lehanneur. He started his own studio in 2010, the same year he also became resident designer at the Ateliers de la Ville de Paris. He also now serves as the artistic director for brand and retailer Habitat.


Pierre is among the coterie of designers collaborating with La Chance, the new Paris-based house emphasizing furniture, lighting and rugs with a "strong personality" made from "noble, durable and natural materials" and all in "European human-size facilities" Got to love that. La Chance is also entrepreneur Jean-Baptiste Souletie and architect Louise Breguetbeen, who got together in life and work because of, well, la chance! The French duo have lived in India and China; designed offices in London and built homes in Haiti; and have lent their know-how to established luxury companies and start-ups firms.


La Chance launched at the 2012 Milan Salone at Tom Dixon's MOST, a 5-building design world in Milan's National Museum of Science and Technology. We zeroed in on their colorful exhibition inside the railway hall, and it was love at first sight.