Ah yes, leave it to the French… Ultra-Parisian Marie Thurnauer and Petites Productions exude a kind of minimalist whimsy that cannot be ignored. One look at the hyper pink website (yes, it is in fact pink) and its equally garish silhouetted images of the handful of products will have you thinking “iconoclast.”

E.T. Table. Designed by Marie Thurnauer. Manufactured by Petites Productions.

But it seems our giant chunk of land on the opposite shore has yet to embrace Marie Thurnauer or her innovative designs, with one notable exception, “Suspension,” a fifteen-foot illuminated rope that ostensibly doubles as a noose. Really more of an art piece or sculpture than a functional light fixture (or at least that appears to be the case to me), Suspension seems to get a bit of stateside press come the ghoulish season, along with amusing debates about utility that seem to miss the point. One imagines the designer rather enjoys such musings…

Suspension. Designed by Marie Thurnauer. Manufactured by Petites Productions.

But a further look within the folds of Petites’ pink panoply reveals some good stuff -some overtly functional pieces that nevertheless exude a captivating charm. Fans of the “sleek, stylish, and steely” conception of a futurist aesthetic will enjoy the E.T. Table, which showed last week at 100% Design Tokyo. The design of the piece couldn’t be simpler: a spare, open-faced nightstand at 50 cm high x 37 cm wide x 20 cm deep (that’s 20″ x 14″ x 11.5″ if you don’t speak metric), E.T. is so named both for its generalized evocation of a futuristic look and its resemblance to the 50s take on space creatures as short, squat, and absurdly big-headed (I’m thinking of the diminutive robots from the classic Bugs Bunny cartoon-see Myto-as well as the iconography of such 50s classics as The Day the Earth Stood Still). One might also think of the piece as an homage to the idea of the futuresque appliance. In this sense, it resembles something that might appear in the kitchen of the crass, TV-addicted parents from Time Bandits. But the punchline here is that there are no moving parts: the E.T. table excels because of its spare, sturdy, and functional form. That it resembles a bygone era’s notion of what the future might look like only to adds to its appeal, especially for those who appreciate the occasional savvy retro reference.