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Go to shop30 September 2025
Ready for more artistic experimentation, Alain Gilles talk about his new projects for XL Boom and Illulian, both highly creative and with a strong visual and material impact.
In early autumn, when companies are already focusing on the upcoming Salone del Mobile, Alain Gilles puts on his best calm and manages deadlines with ease, knowing that his busy schedule is a sign of a successful career, a career he has chosen and loves.
After studying Political Science and working in finance, he decided to take a break and return to his studies, this time pursuing his more creative side and ultimately turning to design. In 2007, he opened his own studio. Among the most decisive and important partnerships in his career was with Bonaldo, for which he designed the Big Table in 2009: versatile and captivating, it has enjoyed great success over the years and has become a true icon.
Gilles experiments with different contexts and materials, and among the new pieces introduced at the latest edition of Maison&Objet are the Nova and Piled collections for XL Boom. He also presents the Gem rugs for Illulian, a unique composition of irregular shapes inspired by precious stones.
Nova and Piled are the two collections of ceramic vases created for XL Boom. What does this material convey to you during the creative process and how does it contribute to the context in which it’s placed?
For me, ceramic is freedom, especially in this type of process where it’s cast in a mold. It makes me feel I could do anything; if I had to do the same thing in wood, for example, it would be complicated, expensive, and perhaps impossible to sell. In this case, ceramic is like the new plastic, but much more beautiful, because you have the freedom to create whatever you want. And for those who include these materials in their homes, the beauty is having something very natural, real, an honest and quiet material.
Moving on to the Gem rug collection for Illulian, can we call them revolutionary from a formal and creative standpoint?
The Gem collection was born almost by chance. When the idea came to me, I wasn’t working on a rug project. I was at a market in Brussels and came across a window displaying pieces of stone in unexpected shapes—one looked like an obelisk, another was broken at the top. The window display itself was ugly, but it must have been the light, the sun hitting them, that piqued my curiosity and I took a photo that stayed on my computer for a long time. Then one day I came into contact with Illulian and the idea was born: the unexpected combination of something sharp like the gems with something soft like the carpet, and I started working on it like a collage. The idea is to insert this object into a room to create a dynamic, a direction, and this is not very common for a carpet. It’s certainly different from the usual, but people are really enjoying it.
Do you feel freer in your creative process now than when you started?
Personally, I feel freer because I have more opportunities; companies trust me more, they want to work with me, and I’m happy about that. But this also brings the expectation that everything you do will become a bestseller. I have to create without feeling this pressure, but of course, if the project requires significant investment, I have to respect this aspect and the company that supports those investments.
In 2022, you designed the Fragilité & Matérialité installation for RBC Lyon Confluence, in which you hand-decorated a selection of iconic furnishings designed for Bonaldo, destined for an auction to benefit Enfant Bleu. It’s an artistic intervention: would you like to give more space to this type of work?
Of course, at the beginning of my career, I couldn’t because I didn’t have the time and I did everything myself. Now I have people who help me, so I have more time and I can take some risks. At the beginning, I felt I had to focus on design, and that was the strategy, so I said no to gallery work. And I like the fact that there’s a threshold between artistic creation and the creation of something functional.
Unlike before, today I accept that in some cases what I design may be slightly less functional, even if it’s still perfectly usable. Today, I’d be ready to create something for galleries, but only if I had something to say. It took me some time to accept my artistic side.
