Jun 16, 2020
Hippocampe
For Paris Déco Off 2020, Métaphores invited RDAI to design an ephemeral installation.
Usually the artisanal fabrics produced in the horsehair weaving workshop in Challes, in France’s Sarthe region, are used in interior decoration, to upholster seats and cover panels.
Métaphores asked RDAIto create a piece for Déco Off, to showcase LE CRIN, one of the exclusive weavings from Métaphores’ savoir-faire line.
In Greek mythology, the hippocampus, sometimes called a seahorse, is a creature with the head and upper body of a horse and the lower body of a snake or fish.
With this in mind, RDAI has designed an ornamental panel made up of nine hundred scales created from horsehair, laser-cut and ingeniously shaped.
The design of the Hippocampe plays on horsehair’s flexibility and rigidity, exploring new decorative ideas for this traditional material.
The red hue intensifies the vibrant shades of the natural colours of the satin Paddock fabric.
Technical specifications of the ornamental panel
Powder-coated steel-tube metalwork gantry
Twenty-five powder-coated metal sheets, laser-cut and suspended from the gantry
Nine hundred laser-cut woven horsehair scales, mounted on a polymer sheet
Panel dimensions: 3 x 3 m
