Arte Distribution

"Chic ! meets" : Juan Amador - "A potted history" of the Coconut chair - "Rising trends" : Concrete jewellery - "What to do with" oranges ? - "Insights" : Joris Laarman

"Chic ! meets" : Juan Amador
This week's creative talent is chef Juan Amador. His penchant for experimenting and his molecular adventures have earned him increasing recognition, but despite this success, he continues to seek out new flavours to stand out from commonplace cuisine. A philosophy he puts into daily practice at his restaurant in Langen, a few kilometres outside Frankfurt.

"A potted history" of the Coconut chair
It's the story of an American designer, Georges Nelson who loved to create furniture that was aesthetic, practical and philosophical. All his creations had to embody the idea of progress and modernity. He worked with the greatest names of his era, Charles and Ray Eames, who invented the molded shell, and Isamu Noguchi, who designed the famous Akari lamps. In the 1950s, he had fun inventing two completely offbeat armchairs - the Marshmallow Bench and the Coconut Chair. The idea behind the chair was to reproduce the form of a shell. Georges Nelson took his inspiration from shapes in nature to design a totally curved chair. Moulded in plastic and glass fibre, supported by three small chrome legs, the Coconut Chair met with huge success particularly among wealthy American industrialists. 82 cm high, 104 cm wide, and 84 cm deep, the Coconut Chair embodies simplicity, comfort and mobility. The Coconut Chair today resides in the most prestigious museums. It has become a veritable 20th century design icon.

"Rising trends" : Concrete jewellery
Jewellery designers, like Patrice Fabre and Marie-Françoise Rouy are taking their inspiration from increasingly surprising sources, particularly from concrete.

"What to do with" oranges ?
We asked top pasty chef Pierre Hermé what to do with an orange, a fruit that is omnipresent in Spain. Especially for Chic, the Parisian pastry chef concocted an exceptional dessert.

"Insights" : Joris Laarman
You've probably already heard of the young trio of Dutch designers, the Demekersvans. Today we meet their neighbour in the workshop next to them in Rotterdam - Joris Laarman, another design prodigy. Like the Demerkersvans, he was noticed at the Endhoven design school by the great priestess of trends, Li Edelkoort. The young man's talent carried him along... and he earned immediate recognition. Blending poetry and experimentation, Joris Laarman's objects and pieces of furniture have already become design classics and are now on display at major international biennials.

40 minutes in total immersion in the fashion world with Mademoiselle Agnès. Ten days of fashion, stimulated by the new generation of designers, reassured by the old guard, and dazzled by hallucinating scenography.

As every season Mademoiselle Agnes immerses herself in the backstage of women's ready-to-wear to take the tension of the business, to measure the height of the heels as well as the morale of the troops.
 

Two food artisans producing the same kind of food – one from Europe and another from Asia – meet up, spend time together and swap knowledge and know-how. The series delves into their different worlds: their work, their businesses, their lives, their production procedures...

Our heroes are food and the people who produce it. Each episode is dedicated to a single organic product – from cheese, fermented cabbage and flatbread to salted fish roe and pasta – and to the stories behind it. Stories of real people who work to produce outstanding foodstuffs, rooted in their local environment and culture. What will they learn from each other?

Spurred by their passion and ambition, talented international chefs are reviving the spirit of French cuisine with renewed vigor. Journey with them as they dive into the fascinating stories behind France’s regional products from Corsica, Provence, Burgundy…
 

... to compose authentic, sophisticated and delicious French menus.What is the story behind these French ingredients? Where do they come from?
 
EPISODES ALREADY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH:
 
01 - CORSICAN FLAVORS
02 - THE ALPS
03 - LYON REGION
04 - OCCITANIA
06 - PROVENCE

To mark his 50th year as a designer, Jean Paul Gaultier held his final show on 22 January 2020 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with an event combining models and artistic performances. 

With exclusive access, Loïc Prigent’s documentary follows the legendary bad-boy of French fashion in this exercise in virtuosity and celebration, a retrospective on a career and a demonstration that his creativity remains undiminished. The perfect occasion to look back on 50 years of classic designs which left their stamp on fashion: The corset, the sailor top, tattoo prints, skirts for men, and Haute Couture revisited.

After decades of growth and ostentation, when every excess was allowed, the fashion industry is currently at a turning point, caught up in the political issues that are reshaping our times: The environment and sustainable development, cultural representation and appropriation, the aspiration for greater equality, issues around gender, etc. 

Brands and creators are now subject to increasingly sharp public scrutiny. How is the fashion industry facing these challenges and responding to this new paradigm? Based as it is on the concept of planned obsolescence, can fashion survive?

From the first rough hessian foot bags to glossy, towering, highly expensive Louboutins, shoes have symbolized status, power and sex appeal. ‘A Journey with Shoes’ tells how shoes reveal how we live and the social class we inhibit, while following the making of a ‘perfect shoe’ by highly successful shoemakers Preston and Zly and three wannabe shoe designers.
 

Interweaving history, myth, nursery rhymes, folklore and Hollywood movies, ‘A Journey with Shoes’ is the story of how shoes have taken a thousand different forms and why.
 
The height of the heel, thickness of the sole and shape of the toe charters the rise and fall of prosperity, heralds wars and changes in sexual politics while reflecting our individual lives.
 
Interweaving history, myth, nursery rhymes, folklore and Hollywood movies, ‘A Journey with Shoes’ is the story of how shoes have taken a thousand different forms and why.

She is renowned worldwide for her fashion sense that combines chic and casual. Isabel Marant is pivotal in the world of fashion. She dresses up "real girls", not fantasies. We follow her from the first beginnings of a collection to its realization on the podium.

The discreetly sexy look of millions of ambassadors seduced by these clothes made for everyday life riffs off the exuberant shows of the fashion week.
Praised by icons such as Kate Moss, Juliette Binoche, Diane Kruger, Gigi and Bella Hadid, among others, she has kept her distance from the star system and spends what little free time she has with her family or her childhood friends in a small country house without water or electricity.
She is a businesswoman at the head of an empire, but she is also a self-made woman who defends her own vision of the world and fashion. She describes herself as a hardworking woman with a craftsman's soul. As Marie Rucki – her former teacher at Studio Berçot – tells it: "She doesn't make fashion for fashion, she makes the fashion she loves, independent".

This film opens the doors to the work of a unique creator with a creative process always on the move and with a unique know-how. He reveals himself as a free and passionate alchemist who imagines shoes as real works of art.

Instinctive and spontaneous, Christian Louboutin is a creator with a singular journey. Constantly on the alert, he develops immediately recognizable collections of shoes and accessories to keep pace with the seasons.
From distant destinations where he isolates himself to draw without constraint, away from the factory in Italy where a rigor and meticulous know-how reigns, Christian Louboutin reveals to us, behind the scenes, of a creative process made of exchanges and travels.
Over the months, we follow Christian Louboutin in his daily life and we witness the birth of an exceptional event: the design of the first major exhibition dedicated to him in France which will be held at Palais de la Porte Dorée in Paris starting February 2020.
This documentary is an opportunity for the creator to share his love for shoes, to pay a vibrant tribute to the artists and craftsmen who crossed his path while returning to his sources of inspiration and the enthusiasm aroused by the act of creation for him.

Like dead leaves and their festival of shimmering colors, fashion week is back! Closer to the creators, models and most prominent personalities of the moment ... Discover the latest trends and everything you need to remember from this moment of pure madness.

Don't anything of the most fashionable event of the season: here is a hot report of this totally unmissable week. Behind the scenes at the podiums, confidences in shocking statements…

40 minutes in total immersion in the fashion world with Mademoiselle Agnès. Ten days of fashion, stimulated by the new generation of designers, reassured by the old guard, and dazzled by hallucinating scenography.

As every season Mademoiselle Agnes immerses herself in the backstage of women's ready-to-wear to take the tension of the business, to measure the height of the heels as well as the morale of the troops.
 

Salting and drying mullet fish roe is common practice around the Mediterranean. Petros Paragyios is a ‘Botargo’ maker – that’s how it’s called – who took over the family tradition in Aitoliko, Greece. Here Botargo is best grated on pasta with shrimps and tomato. 

He travels to Japan to meat Messaya Takano, also from a family of Botargo makers. Here Karasumi – that’s what it’s called in Japanese - sells at 700€ a kg, three or four times the price in Greece.  Working together they discover how these two ancient traditions can be processed differently making subtle but significant differences.