An Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove
Pauline Deltour, photographed for Disegno #21 (image: Thomas Chéné).
Pauline Deltour (1983-2021)
I first met Pauline Deltour in 2013 when I had been invited by the designer Elric Petit to sit on the jury for the Industrial Design BA at ECAL in Lausanne, Switzerland. I felt incredibly nervous the whole flight over. I’d only been working in design for around two years, and this was the first major thing that I’d undertaken outside of Disegno. The fear of being found out as a fraud was overpowering.
Pauline was a part of that jury, along with the designer Luca Nichetto, and by the time I arrived to meet them at the bar of the Hotel Mirabeau I was feeling very anxious indeed. I knew Luca a little and liked him a great deal, but he was already so established within design (surely he would be one of the people who would discover that I was inept?) that there wasn’t much he could do to reassure me. I didn’t know Pauline at all, but it was her who made me feel better. She was instantly so warm, witty and welcoming; serious about the work ahead and looking forward to speaking with the students, but also light, charming and seemingly very relaxed about the whole thing. Her kindness played a big part in putting me at ease.
It never occurred to me that Pauline might also have been nervous. She had only opened her own Paris studio in 2011, having graduated from les Arts Décoratifs in 2007 and subsequently worked for four years for Konstantin Grcic in Munich. In the grand scheme of things, she was also something of a newcomer, but it is testament to how much she had already achieved that it certainly didn’t feel that way. Throughout the judging process, Pauline was generous and encouraging to all of the students, but her analysis and critique of their work was unfailingly precise and exacting – she held the respect and attention of everyone in the room. It seemed so obvious that we were in the presence of someone who already knew their craft so well, who felt fully formed in their approach, and who had so much to offer the discipline. And yet she’d only been working independently for two years.
But, then, there was always something distinctive about Pauline’s work. On her website, she described herself as an “iron fist in a velvet glove” and I think there’s truth in that. So many of her works had an air of fun and visual whimsy: the Clean Machine (2006) wooden toy car atop a little red brush that she created with Grcic; her jolly Pierrot (2015) coat stand for Alessi; her Bloc (2020) tables for Established & Sons, which seemed like living doodles thanks to their clever use of colour that managed to trick the eye into reading 3D objects as 2D shapes; and, not least, her adorable Monimalz (2021) piggy banks for Yellow Innovation (which we had the privilege to cover in Disegno #21). But underneath this charm, Pauline’s work was always rigorous, exact and highly resolved, right down to the finest detail. There was fun and joy to be had in everything that Pauline designed, but this was only because she worked so hard to make it that way. Her Patio (2019) collection for Tolix is a picture-perfect outdoor furniture set, which looks completely effortless and chic – as if its bent steel forms had been dashed off as a quick sketch on paper. I can only imagine the lengths she must have gone to in order to achieve this. “Something I learned early on,” she told the writer Crystal Bennes in Disegno #21, “is that for any project you have to rethink your process of working.”
Pauline described her work as being simultaneously “severe and delicate”, which seems testament to the richness of her design: her objects could encompass contradictions, while still feeling cohesive, singular and complete. Following on from our first meeting in Lausanne, I had the pleasure to write about Pauline’s work a handful of times: to interview her at trade fairs around Europe and visit her studio in Paris. She was a designer whose work I was always excited and interested to see, and who was unfailingly kind but precise in interviews. When I wrote about Pierrot for Disegno's website, I thought I might attempt a sentence or two in French within the article, which I then sent on to Pauline. “My dear,” she replied patiently, “there is a mistake,” before proceeding to catalogue a litany of grotesque grammatical crimes. The iron fist had clamped down – and quite rightly too – but Pauline remained polite and generous throughout. “I hope you don’t mind that I am telling you all of this!” she concluded.
Well, not at all. Pauline had so much more to offer design, but it is indicative of her talent and character that she had already created such a considerable legacy – in the 10 years in which her studio operated, there was just so much to celebrate. Everyone who knew Pauline will have been touched by her and her work. Disegno’s thoughts and feelings are with her friends and family.
Words Oli Stratford