Longchamp Explores the Poetics of Objects with Patrick Jouin at Milan Design Week

Longchamp continues its dialogue with the design world, presenting a new collaboration with Patrick Jouin at Milan Design Week 2026. This event serves as a significant international showcase and a platform for exploring diverse artistic languages and approaches. This project builds upon the French Maison's recent trajectory, which has focused on exploring the realm of contemporary furniture and creation through collaborations with international designers and studios like Studio Högl Borowski and Pierre Renart.

The flagship store on Via della Spiga hosts a pop-up installation that embodies a shared vision between Longchamp's artisanal savoir-faire and the design approach of Jouin. Born in Nantes in 1967, Jouin is known for his commitment to reinventing industrial culture. As creative director Sophie Delafontaine highlighted, these projects enable the Maison to support creativity and activate new forms of expression, without necessarily leading to mass production.

The collaboration began with the aim of enhancing the Milan boutique's furniture collection but evolved into a broader dialogue. On one hand, it leverages the Maison's expertise in leatherworking, and on the other, Jouin's research into form, function, and materials. The result is a series of objects that retain a strong authorial signature and offer a reinterpretation consistent with the Longchamp universe.

Among these are the DROP coffee tables, part of the Patrick Jouin Édition collection, reinterpreted with the Maison's signature hues – Light Green and Heritage Green – applied to hand-poured enameled surfaces. This technique directly evokes watercolor painting, a central element in the designer's creative process, with color flowing fluidly and unpredictably across surfaces. Alongside these, the OLO armchair incorporates leather details with dyed edges, emphasizing precise finishing and attention to detail.

While these interventions offer variations on existing objects, the core of the collaboration lies in a new project: a jointly developed portable lamp. Crafted from micro-perforated full-grain leather on an oak base, the lamp translates iconic Longchamp elements into an object, including snap buttons reminiscent of the Le Pliage line. This modular, rechargeable device features an LED system. Produced in a limited edition of ten pieces, the lamp represents a convergence of essential, durable design and the valorization of material as a narrative element. It's no coincidence that Jouin emphasizes "honest" materials – leather, steel, wood – that age and transform over time, aligning with Longchamp's commitment to sustainability and production quality.

The collaboration between Longchamp and Patrick Jouin strikes a balance between rigor and sensitivity, technical precision and openness to the unexpected, delivering objects that aim to forge a connection with those who interact with them in their daily lives.