Discover Highlights from PAD Paris 2025

Those recognized for contemporary and historic design excellence just happened to have facing booths across the same corridor. On one was the extraordinary chaise by Tom Dixon, designed in 2008 in solid steel punctured with generous holes. “It’s a technique used for submarines,” explained gallerist Romain Morandi. Eventually produced as a limited edition of 12, these original designs—a set comprising a swing chair, a lounge chair, and an armchair—had been made for Sudeley Castle, a stately home in England where radical new work was placed among the grand contents. This perfect piece had a €38,000 tag.

Opposite was the most romantic piece of 1970s fantasy: a four-poster bed by Maria Pergay, originally made for the last empress of Iran, its structure in gleaming chrome. This one, from 1973 by Maison Jansen, matched the metal with soft hand-made linen curtains. “It sold as soon within minutes of the fair opening,” said Alexandre Goult of the Parisian Galerie Meubles et Lumieres.

In fact, sales were brisk from the start, as the French collectors, decorators, and designers were joined in the aisles by a good showing of American visitors, including Julie Hillman. Caroline Sarkozy was very interested in two rugs at Swedish specialists Modernity—one by Carl Malmsten in pale green and another by Marta Maas Fjetterstrom in pink, brown, and yellow, both from the 1940s. Meanwhile, British designer Ron Arad had joined the team at Opera Gallery, who gave the whole booth over to the Israeli/London designer. His mammoth bookcase—America, Made in Africa—created in Senegal from discarded oil cans, was an explosion of blue, red, and yellow at nearly four meters long and 2.2 meters high (and priced €200,000). It was, we agreed, one of the better things to have come out of COVID times.

Below, more highlights from PAD:

Snowflake Ceiling Lamp (1950s) by Paavo Tynell at Modernity (London, Stockholm)

The Snowflake chandelier has become something of a design classic, and genuine versions are becoming increasingly hard to find. With the brass mesh flakes suspended from super-fine brass wires, many originals have not survived the intervening 70 or so years in good shape. A perfect example, however, was to be found at the 19^th-20^th century specialists Modernity—a large one with a 53-inch drop—and unsurprisingly, and in spite of its €450,000 price tag, was sold in the first hour of the fair.

Pair of Lacquered Consoles by Kengo Kuma (2025) at Philippe Gravier (Paris)

Philippe Gravier focuses on furniture designed by architects, and he has worked with the Japanese superstar Kengo Kuma for a while. Kuma is known for dazzling buildings, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in Dundee, Scotland, and MIRAI, a sparkling mixed-use development in Miami, which is yet to begin. The pair of consoles at PAD is composed of stacked drawers, their luscious Urushi lacquer finish graduated from a vibrant tomato red to a deeper shade at the base. Only five pairs will be made, at €70,000 a pair.

Shelving with Bamboo and Mirror (2006) by Andrea Branzi at Downtown + (Paris)

Andrea Branzi, who died in 2023 aged 85, was the most poetic member of Milan’s influential band of designers who emerged in the 1970s and ‘80s. Unafraid to combine nature with technology, Branzi brought the organic world into the home, with metal, glass, branches, and stone. Luna Laffanour, the 28-year-old daughter of seasoned Parisian dealer François, is now busy assembling the best iterations of his work. This cabinet is one example: a backlit mirrored box containing transparent glass shelves and bamboo uprights, made in 2006 (€45,000). “He’s still quite niche in appeal, but he has certainly influenced the next generation,” says Laffanour. “It’s hard to place him—artist, poet, architect; to know where the boundaries are.”

Vases by Mel Arsenault (2024/5) and Plate Decorated by Picasso (c.1953) at Florian Daguet-Bresson (Paris)

The young ceramics specialist with a vibrant Paris gallery always offers a broad view of the craft. Two bodies of work, of very different hue, stood out on his stand. The vases of Mel Arsenault are bright and breezy, with colors that seem to come straight from Claude Monet’s gardens and lakes at Giverny. The 40-something Québécois works with a range of glossy and iridescent glazes and organic patterns to create pots that shimmer. Affordable too—prices reach the €7,000 mark.

Daguet-Bresson was also showing an exceptional plate, decorated by Pablo Picasso in Cannes around 1953. A bull-fight scene is picked out in black, as the spectators’ stands are arranged around the plate’s border. “It never went into production, so this is a unique piece,” said Daguet-Bresson, pointing out the artist’s thumb mark in the thick black glaze. Asked how it came his way, the dealer confessed it had belonged to a friend of his grandparents.

Resin Table by Marie-Claude de Fouquieres at Galerie Jacques Lacoste (Paris)

“The 1970s have arrived!” exclaimed Jacques Lacoste, the doyen of the very classiest French design, a specialist in the highly prized work of Jean-Michel Frank and Jean Royère from the 1920s-50s. For PAD, he decided to take a jazzier path, and at the center of his booth was a standout triangular resin table by the designer Marie-Claude de Fouquiere, embedded with ball bearings in a star pattern. The table had been made to commission for RTL, the French commercial radio network, in 1972. “The presenters used to sit at it,” said Lacoste. An absolute attention-grabber, the table—in spite of its 200 kg weight and hefty (undisclosed) price—had already found a new home, this time in a private house.