We’re kicking off coverage of Maison & Objet/Paris Design Week with a very French approach to textiles.

In the mind and art of designer Juliette Berthonneau, a textile isn’t solely a surface adornment, made as an embellishment to something ostensibly more substantial ( a wall, a furnishing), but rather the essence of substance itself.

Primarily using the gesture/form of the pleat, Berthonneau crafts 3D textiles into woven surfaces and dynamic forms. The cloth thus inhabits space in a way conventional textiles do not, not to mention behaves fluidly and interactively with the surrounding context.

Examples of how all this intellectualizing translates into Berthonneau’s engaging objects include Depli (above), a collection of pleated modules that clip together: “imaginary ephemeral volumes to be made, unmade, and remade”; Cerf-volant soleil (“Sun Kite,” below and main image above): pleated fabric with no supporting structure that surfs the wind; and Bouncing Patterns (image beneath Sun Kite): a thickly woven textile with a multi-layer hollow structure that creates elasticity, “making it self-supporting and endlessly transformable.”

Because of their palpable multi-dimensionality and self-supporting structure, Berthonneau’s textiles are more like sculpture than fabric. She’s also interested in the functional potential of 3D textiles, “cutting-edge sustainable solutions for acoustic issues in open spaces, thermal insulation, new mattresses, or upholstery materials.”

Juliette Berthonneau‘s work has appeared at the Neko Health Showroom in Stockholm and at the Hermès store in Aix-en-Provence. See her at Maison & Objet as a participant in the Paris Design Week Factory, a dedicated exhibition space for emerging designers.