Tsé Tsé Associées Studio Visit, Paris
A blend of curio, magic, and storytelling...
Founded by two Parisian designers, Sigolène Prébois and Catherine Lévy, Tsé Tsé Associées is one of the most unique independent design brands in the world. Late last year, we visited Siogolène and showroom manager Sandrine at their studio set inside a beautiful two storey building, where the company has been housed for over twenty years.
One enters Tsé Tsé through two giant blue doors, off a grey Parisian street, and opposite an old bakery. The doors are almost a prerequisite for what's to come, a new world made of colour. We are welcomed and guided past the stack of bicycles, up the wooden staircase, creaking with our weight, step edges softened from years of wear. The walls are covered in a classic French blue and decorated in painted flowers...
Upstairs, the showroom doors open to two light-filled rooms, showcasing found objects set against the company's newest prototypes - this layering of old and new ideas is a perfect way to sum up the Tsé Tsé's spirit, a blend of curio, magic, and storytelling. It is hard to know where to place one's eyes, darting between a lamp with eyelashes hanging above our heads and the metal patched floor boards.
The showroom space, and the adjoining workshops space, where designer Sigolène spends her making time, are in the truest sense; a creative space. A wonderworld of collected nik-naks from travels, including paper shoes, tin clocks, photographs of their family in vivid energy, walls stacked with drawers and many, many lamps. There are three tables in the workshop studio, one for a computer-brain, one for a playful-brain, and one for a handwork-brain. Any broken windows are patched with tinted film, which casts bright shapes all over the floor.
Tsé Tsé Associées products are made to be personalised, a generous gift from the designer to allow their customers to create the final details, to make it their own, because it is the brand's valued notion that they, the receiver, are the ones who will enjoy the object in their own space, in their own way.
The wonderful world of Tsé Tsé Associées.
Sigolène Prébois with the Tsé Tsé Associées Vase d'Avril, $415.00
Before we left, she pulled out an archive of Tsé Tsé invitations, laser cut papers, watch shaped cards, and pop up cards with open mouthed birds. Play and creativity, fuelled by curiosity, is what drives Tse Tse's vision and it is a world that they invite you into via their thoughtful, and sometimes humorous, objects. It was such fun.
The two women's energy is without a doubt distilled into each Tsé Tsé product. Life and vibrancy was all over their faces, in their eyes. We could tell that this workplace was a beautiful and nourishing place for them to come each day...
The vibrant workshop space, featuring coloured windows and family photos.
The patched metal floors, a task executed by the Tsé Tsé staff to replicate previous patching found in the building.
The coloured film, used on the broken glass windows, is filtered through the sun and onto the floor.
The ground-level workshop where larger objects and materials are experimented with.
Explore our range of Tsé Tsé Associées in store and online, here.
Following Sandrine through the workshop entrance way into dispatch.