Palais de Tokyo, Paris, May 2O1O

Both a trade show and an art exhibition, 1.618 Paris is the first annual rendez-vous of Sustainable Luxury, supported by the French Ministry of Culture and the WWF.Open to the public, the event proposes a transverse selection of products and services combining Art, Creativity, Innovation and Sustainable Development at the service of another Luxury, more ethical, in line with his time.
In an innovative and contemporary setting, 1.618 Paris presents works of artists who ponder the issues of Sustainable Development and consumption.
A different approach to Sustainable Development: avoiding guilt and nurturing the soul through beauty.

The Catalogue

On this occasion, 1618 publishes a reference catalogue. More than a catalogue, it is a book that will identify both the exhibitors products and services, and the different actors who are influent in this other luxury.This information tool, fully eco concieved, will give the oportunity to personalities who are involved in the changing world to share their visions.
An annual reference of the international offer: a statement on the luxury values’ mutation. 

What is, to you, the essence of luxury today?

Luxury will always offer us the affordable utopia. For those who sleep-walk towards indulgence, its the risk of loosing sight of our planetary boundaries forever, and the realities of our ecological footprint and, therefore, join the ranks of those accelerating the liabilities of civilization. But for those connected with the urgent needs of system change and disruptive innovation, whether they are product designers, CEOs or customers; luxury opens the possibility of experimenting withcutting edge innovation, break mental barriers and dream of new frontiers.

Alejandro Litovsky. Director of the Pathways to Scale Program at Volans, which works with social innovators, business investors, and policy-makers, in order to create new forms of market intelligence that accelerate the transition to a more sustainable economy.

In today’s world, the very essence of luxury is to be human and sustainable at the same time. To share “our” daily bread with others every day. To be able to drink clean water and breath clean air. To be warm and have a place to sleep every night. To be able to raise our eyes and see a bright blue sky. To have an ID and also an identity. To exist and co-exist within a peaceful atmosphere. To be valuable to others and to value others. To know how to care, to prevent and to protect. To see our children and their children grow up strong, healthy, free and within a climate of solidarity. The essence of luxury is having been sufficiently aware in order not to have to beg for forgiveness of future generations for the decisions we make in our daily basis. Briefly, to be worthy of being.

Gabriel Griffa. Entrepreneur, creator of the business magazine Apertura Target. In the year 2000, he was chosen as director of communications for the Swiss businessman, Stephan Schmidheiny, who, through the Avina Foundation, implements sustainable developments in Latin America. 
Today he lives in Uruguay is a consultant for the organization of both social and private sectors, formulating strategies for creating lasting values.

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Personally, I believe that the essence of luxury, today, needs to be a reinvention of what we value as precious in the design industry. We are beginning to understand that we have reached a point in which the world can no longer sustain our design, production, and/or consumption patterns. We need to use our creativity to produce high-quality, desirable objects made with responsibly sourced materials, manufactured throughout processes that have low impacts on the environment, and produced in a socially responsible manner, creating opportunities for communities in need.

Paulina Reyes. Mexican designer. Works in the United States for different design firms such as Kate Spade, Dufy and Colins. She participated in the exhibition “Design for a living world” at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York.

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In my opinion, the essence of luxury is a combination of having enough time to visualize personal and collective futures, attaining peace in the mind for deep understanding, being surrounded by the beauty of nature, people and aesthetics in all senses. Luxury is also being around friends from different parts of the world, who are seriously committed to inner callings and meaningful paths where work is self generated as part of a permanent discovery of available options.

Pedro Tarak. Founder of the Foundation of Environment and Natural Resources in Argentina and international consultant of the World Bank environmental issues.
He participated on the Latin-American Civil Society at the Earth Summit in 1992.
Today he represents the Avina Foundation in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay.
He is responsable for Europe for climate changes strategies.

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Can luxury industries pull off the apparently impossible trick of making conspicuous consumption guilt-free, in a world increasingly squeezed by the scarcity of resources and climate change? Whatever the answer may be, expect more offerings speaking to shrinking ecological footprints, intergenerational equity and to the new gold standard,conspicuous sustainability.

John Ellington. Founder & Executive Chairman of Volans, also co-founder of SustainAbility in 1987, John Ellington is a worldwide authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable developments. In 2004, BusinessWeek described him as “the Dean of the corporate responsibility movement for three decades”. In 2008, London’s Evening Standard named John among the ‘1000 Most Influential People’ in London, describing him as “a true green business guru,” and an “evangelist” for social corporate and environmental responsibility; long before it became fashionable.

Luxury implies wealth and many people view wealth as a place of privilege. I view wealth differently – I view it as a place of influence and with influence comes responsibility. When I look at luxury in the context of the environment, I realize a great opportunity. By utilizing luxury to tell the story about the challenges facing our environment and ecology, it then becomes a tool to influence the influential in order to create a powerful message to the masses. The only way that we’re going to make a difference in the state of our world is if everyone participates in changing what kind of footprint they leave on the environment. So, the essence of luxury to me today is responsibility to whom much is given, much is required.

Pierre-Andre Senizergues. Former world champion professional skater/owner of Sole Technology and creator of C PAS, a sustainable high-end men’s apparel collection.

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“Luxury”, would be to alienate his appearance, and not confuse the targeting of its identity and the identity of its own production. 

Francois Roche. A graduate of the School of Architecture of Versailles in 1987, Francois Roche co-founded in 1990 -with Stephanie Lavaux- the Agency R&Sie (n). The corresponding goal is to lead to thoughts about contemporary issues, such as hybridization, genetic mutations, morphing and hyperlocalism.

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A workshop on Mars.

Georges Pascal Ricordeau. Artist Georges-Pascal Ricordeau’s work reveals the transition from standardization to synchronization that our civilization experiences today. His approach is based on the idea of networking and interactivity.

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(To be able to) cultivate the nothingness.
Feel everything on the fingertips, understanding without speaking, seeing with eyes half-closed, convincing without arguing, being without needing to make.

Françoise Hélène Jourda. Nominated Architect for the “Global Award for Sustainable Architecture

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For most people, luxury is the world of brands and illusion.
Real luxury is when life takes depth and diversity: it is a quest, an intensity of that guide us to try to have the opportunity of living with our time. 

Matali Crasset. Educated as an industrial designer, she employs a peculiar methodology - she questions the obviousness of the codes governing our daily life to set people free people and to experience. She develops new typologies articulated around principles such as modularity, appropriation, flexibility and network.

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Make his life an artwork. Participate in overall creativity of life, ”its” consumption too. This is luxury’s expense. Beyond or within utilitarianism, this impulsiveness (”impulsive effect”) pushing instinctively like an animal, to enjoy life, and objects, products, moments it provides.
That is the logic of luxury briefly described. Therefore self-realization, or the world does “is” no more a simple economic action, but flourishes in an ecological interaction.

Michel Mafessoli. French sociologist, professor at the Sorbonne. Former student of Gilbert Durand and Julien Freund, professor at Paris Descartes’ University, Michel Maffesoli has developed a work around the issue of social community, imagination and everyday life in contemporary societies’ prevalence in order to contribute to postmodern paradigm approach.

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The essence of luxury begins precisely where the main stop and the need beyond the need to address the desire and dream. Luxury is essentially intangible, a lifestyle dedicated to the satisfaction of desires in the midst of a reality that offers much more easily otherwise. The essence of luxury is the quality of our perception of the world, freedom to have time one can dedicate to the imagination and dreams for luxury is a fantasyland where the exception becomes the rule and accessory essentials.

Electronic Shadow. Yacine Ait Kaci and Naziha Mestaoui
Think tomorrow while crossing the world today with a good dose of imagination and poetry, is what the duo practice since 2000. Blending architecture, image, innovation, they model a hybrid world in which our identity and our perception becomes multiple increasingly focused on its meaning. Through numerous exhibitions in France and abroad, Electronic Shadow shares his vision with audiences of art design through the performing arts. This world also comes through various design projects, like the quiet atmosphere of the first exhibition 1.618. In October 2010, the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence calls Electronic Shadow for a major exhibition on the occasion of its 10th anniversary.

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To me, the essence of luxury today is consciousness. OR Luxury without consciousness is no longer luxury.

Xavier Llongueras. Is an artist, concentrated foremostly on mosaic creation and sustainable design. Born in the south of France he was stylistically influenced and fascinated by the Spanish mosaic tradition at an early age. He has come to fuse art and ecology in a way that feels inherently natural and is unassumingly beautiful. A twenty year career based in Los Angeles has afforded him the opportunity to collaborate with some of the brightest and most creative minds of our time, and to work in projects including commercial and residential eco-design, fine art, landscape, and mosaic installation all over the world.

May 6th to 10th 2010
Palais de Tokyo
Paris

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