This month sees Parisian design event Designer’s Days opening and a group of students from ECAL (the University of Art & Design Lausanne in Switzerland) will be presenting a series of objects made for luxe French silver house Christofle.

From the 16th to the 20th of June, their silver designs will be on show at Christofle on 9 Rue Royale in Paris.

The projects have been created by the students of the Master’s in Design and Luxury Industry during a workshop.

It's an ongoing partnership between Christofle and ECAL since 2009, and for the 2011 workshop, led by the designer Xavier Perrenoud, Christofle asked the students to reflect on the idea of a gift for a christening or birth, and more generally on childhood.

Christofle is known for its silver tumblers, egg cups, napkin rings and cutlery sets for babies, and so these pieces are traditional and even almost institutionalized objects; but the question was how to reinvent them, and how to retain the timeless quality of silver whilst bringing something lighter, more poetic and humorous to the design.

The ECAL’s Master of Design and Luxury Industry students came up with thirteen unexpected and surprising creations, all filled with retro nostalgia but at the same time steeped in the inventiveness and creative universe that says they are truly a part of their own era.

These objects will be presented exclusively within the framework of the Designer’s Days in Paris, and some of them will later be produced as part of Christofle’s collections. 

Photography ECAL/Damien Ropero.