Plaster master

Veteran designer Elizabeth Garouste stays ahead of the curve with a new free-flowing collection for Ralph Pucci

- PEI-RU KEH

Well before collectible design was established as a genre, there was Ralph Pucci. The New York gallerist, who has been an active force in the city’s creative scene since the 1970s, operates his eponymous furniture and lighting gallery from an unbelievable penthouse loft in the heart of Manhattan’s Flatiron district. It is filled with an array of statement-making pieces from designers as far-reaching as Hervé van der Straeten, India Mahdavi, Vladimir Kagan and Jens Risom, as well as a growing collection of collaborative pieces made at its in-house sculpture studio and furniture workshop. A visit to the unprecedented space, its home since 1992, underscores just how unique the Ralph Pucci enterprise is.

Although many of the designers in Pucci’s repertoire are well-established, the energetic gallerist has long upheld a distinctive point of view, which is evident from the gestural furniture and lighting pieces that fill the gallery’s two floors. His latest collaborator is none other than the French interior designer Elizabeth Garouste. One half of the Parisian design duo Garouste & Bonetti, who were also known as ‘the New Barbarians’, the duo were the toast of the design scene in the early 1990s and beloved for their fusion of quirk and grandeur. Having focused on private commissions since 2002, Garouste puts her unconventional, colour-forward aesthetic back in front of a new audience with this new body of work with Ralph Pucci International. It comprises seven pieces, including a mirror, chandelier, sconce, console, table lamp, dining table and side table (with tabletops in marble and mosaics), all incorporating the company’s proprietary Plasterglass and Garouste’s love for artisanal found materials.