Raw Edges Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades

"The foundations of Louis Vuitton are based on creative ideas and revolutionary solutions."

Raw Edges is the creative couple identified by Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay. After graduating at the Royal College of Art in London in 2006, the two have won a series of international awards - including the Wallpaper * Design Award, the British Council Talented Award and the Design Miami/Basel Designer of the Future.

Some of the works of Raw Edges are part of museum collections, such as those exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to that, Mer and Alkalay produce limited edition designs and installations at their London studio.

Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay collaborated with Louis Vuitton in the creation of three objects for the Objets Nomades collection: the Concertina Chair, the Concertina Table and the Concertina Light Shade.

#1 The Concertina Chair

The Concertina Chair is the result of Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay’s long-time interest in collapsible objects. Atop a structure made of ash wood and brushed gilded metal, a padded seat of overlapping petals covered in special Nomade leather concertinas into a chair that is intriguing and comfortable. Originally inspired by a piece of industrial duct tubing, the chair’s remarkable design takes the extremely complex and makes it look absolutely natural.

#2 The Concertina Table

Raw Edges’ Concertina Table brings to mind the flower that has featured on the House’s Monogram pattern since 1896. The understated elegance of the ash-wood legs and trefoil top contrast with the handsome Nomad leather calfskin to give the portable table what the designers call a “special presence”.

#3 The Concertina Light Shade

The paper in Raw Edges’ eye-catching Concertina Light Shade creates a gentle glow while its delicately floating metal structure forms, lined in leather, a fascinating play of shadows and light.

We liked the challenge of working on a collection of collapsible objects. Usually the focus is on how to make collapsible objects very small and flat. In this project we mostly focused on how to make them look large, surprising and with real presence when they are expanded. We like to find a principle and then to try and apply it to dif ferent objects. In this case we started with the armchair, which is the most challenging, then applied the comfort, foldability, strength and finally the mechanism to the table and light, which was a very joyful process.

During the design process for your Objets, what did you consider first, form or function?

The products are quite complex in their geometry, so we had to consider both form and function very carefully. But there is more to it than that because we also looked at what the shape expresses, if it reminded us of something else. What comes to mind when we think about people travelling with Louis Vuitton trunks at the end of the 19th century?

What have you called your Objets and why?

The Concertina Collection, as the folding principle was initially based on a concertina mechanism.

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