In the past, I suppose I haven’t been too kind when mentioning the designs coming from Philippe Starck. My opinion is a matter of subjective taste, which happens to be in the minority and generally, I hate am disgusted dislike immensely his designs. I can’t help it. Let’s say that I WANT to like it, but it just doesn’t happen for me. I mean, c’mon look at what he created for babies here.

I have more examples. A couple of days ago, he was making headlines that corresponded with the opening of a new boutique hotel launched by the founders of Club Med because he designed it. The hotel, called Mama Shelter, is located just outside of Paris. It looks fun and it seems to be a budget hotel that is warm open. I do think they achieved their goal.

Now, the design. It’s not horrible. Alright. I am not too thrilled with the sconces that Mr. Starck designed. They are essentially plastic Halloween masks he bought from Walmart or somewhere, then decided to reassign their function and hang them on the wall. When I saw these, I wanted to laugh and cry and the same time.

That said, Philippe Starck once admitted that he tries to make his life worthy of existing as a designer… and although his designs don’t impress me in the slightest, he was nevertheless impressive, if not entertaining during his 18-minute talk at TED. In some way he and his speech redeemed himself to me in many ways as he explained in a fun and charming way, why he designs, and in the end, it doesn’t really matter if it’s ugly or ridiculous or silly.

[via apartmentherapy]

tags: france, french, paris, mama shelter, philippe starck, mask sconces philippe starck, ted talks