March is Women’s History Month, and I will devote a weekly post to one of the women who have shaped the design world throughout the last century. The first is Charlotte Perriand (1903-99), one of the most gifted and active designers in postwar France. A quintessential Modernist, she devoted her career to the pursuit of affordable, innovative furnishings which would improve the daily lives of millions living in France and its colonies. Through her vision, ambition, and imagination, Perriand embraced an aesthetic of simplicity and promoted a healthy lifestyle. She was fascinated with new materials and progressive technologies, always merging craft and industry. Passionate about social progress, her contribution to standardization and prefabrication was immense. The Machine-Age, to her was an engine to move modernism from the margins into the mainstream, and to grant designers with social responsibility. Always creating, always inventing, 8 her domestic objects came to share the habits of daily life, as she sought to unite man with his time, and to formulate a concept for French “good design.” All images courtesy of Charlotte Perriand Foundation; video supported by Cassina and Cultured Magazine.
