'We’ve laid our foundations and there’s the idea that we’re here to stay,' Matter and Shape artistic director Dan Thawley said about the fair’s just-concluded third edition (6-9 March), whose theme was 'scale'. 'In design today,' Thawley said, 'we are always discussing collectible design and it all becomes a bit nebulous, so I wanted to think about it in a humorous way.'
Herzog and de Meuron's ‘Hong Kong’ stool
Georg Jensen
But 'scale' isn’t just about the size of works, it’s also about size of production: industrial companies were showing at the fair, as well as independent designers who have a hand in every one of their pieces’ production. Storied design house Georg Jensen showed 11 reissued jewellery works by midcentury Danish and Swedish female artist-makers; Herzog and de Meuron showed their ‘Hong Kong’ stool (inspired by the benches made for Hong Kong’s M+ museum: pieces are slotted together and held in place by one wooden spike) in a special walnut and ash wood mix just for the fair; and up-and-coming French designer Sophie Taillet had her spinning-top mirrors on display at the entrance to one of the two pavilions in the Tuileries Gardens.
Verre d’Onge
Verre d’Onge, a Montreal-based glassblowing business, has shown at Matter and Shape since the first edition (there are very few exhibitors who return year after year). 'The fair suits our personal tastes,' co-founder Jérémie St-Onge said. 'The clientele is the difference,' co-founder Flor Taillefer-Pérez added, citing that the fair attracts a lot of professionals (Thawley confirmed that it is mainly B2B-focused) and those who work in the creative industries. The fair’s owner, WSN, also owns fashion fair Premiere Classe, which runs during Paris Fashion Week, with tents abutting those of Matter and Shape. This year, Verre d’Onge showed glass bottles in a variety of colours, shapes and sizes. 'They’re very spontaneous forms,' St-Onge said; he let the pieces dictate their own endpoint.
There were some major changes to the fair for 2026, such as a dedicated scent section, which included Ecdysis Studio’s first artist edition of its Cave 0 perfume, created with the use of cave waters, cicada nymph skins and microbial moonmilk deposits.
Matter and Shape architecture by JA Projects
Another change for Matter and Shape was in its architecture, which this year was entrusted to JA Projects. Thawley had met the practice’s founding director Jayden Ali at Frieze Masters, and had also admired his work at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023, as well as at the Royal Academy of Arts’ exhibition ‘Entangled Pasts’ the year after.
'I wanted to root [the fair’s revamped design] in the context of these gardens,' Ali said, referring to the Tuileries backdrop. He was drawn to the gardens' mix of botany, commerce and civicness, and especially intrigued by the addition of mulberry trees for silk production under King Henri IV – who revised the gardens in the late 16th century. This led JA Projects to the idea of using moiré – a finish often associated with silk – and, along with Studio Hugo Blanzat, the team referenced it throughout (see top), including in a public bench between the fair’s pavilions that was regularly occupied on opening day.
'It’s about new forms of gathering,' said Ali, who also arranged the auditorium’s seating in a way to represent an arena – a nod to the riding school that used to be in that part of the gardens. Following the fair, a lot of the materials used in the pavilions’ construction will be given to an architecture school to, said Ali, 'nudge the dial towards sustainability'.