Probing into the history of ornaments with Adèle Vivet’s ‘Everyday Ornament’

An ornament, often an addition, and, in the architectural historian Sir John Summerson's words, “surface modulation.” Though mostly considered an artistic element incorporated into a functional product to increase its visual aesthetics, ornaments go much beyond that. Over the course of history , the rise and decline of ornamentation used in design have resulted in the emergence of influential art and design movements—the Renaissance, Art Nouveau , Arts and Crafts Movement, Modernism, and so on. As a result, even today, the existence of a building or object in a specific period is studied by observing its ornamentation. While we don’t realise how significant the smallest detail called an 'ornament' is, it has shaped identities for many chapters of history. Inspired by these factors and hailing from a family of historians and researchers, French artist-designer Adèle Vivet uses design to link in­tui­tions from child­hood me­mo­ries or past ex­pe­riences to strong his­to­ri­cal and so­cial resources. Her recent collection ‘Everyday Ornament’ is an embodiment of this philosophy of the historical relevance of ornament.

“Memory is an incredible tool to understand our contemporary stakes,” narrates Vivet. "My project is a self-reflection about the role of ornament. I take the position that it has to remain important in order to highlight the singularity of an object and reflect on our ways of living and history. I put my work as a rejection of the functionalism, and I think it is still meaningful to tell history through stories in our objects.” Part of the collection are arch-shaped stools with ornamental detailing inside, white ceramic stoneware vases, printed linoleum carpets and brooches.

Everyday Ornament is a project with two parts that aim to build a whole ornament installation where the designer strives to uncover, reveal and re-introduce ornament in the modern world. The stools and vases take shape from the product designer’s first exploration of where modern aesthetics and ornamentation meet in double-sided objects. When retelling stories about how ornaments are perceived in 21st-century Western culture, the product design puts the observer in a quandary, as the products cannot be classified into one style of design but rather become an amalgamation of the past and the present. In the NEXT phase of her work, Vivet designed carpets with her illustrations and drawings.

Talking about the project, Vivet shares, “These are witnesses of a way of living by being the representations of trivial objects that fascinate me as well as my daily life observations. Carpets, vases and stools are all objects that I immediately connect to the domestic space." She uses them to build up an environment where everything can be read as an ornament. "The decor makes the object rather than the opposite: it has to give meaning to its structure and become the main column. I’m convinced that decor still has to exist. As a designer, illustrator drawer and artist, the ornament is a way to give a special value to my pieces. I will stand for it to imply some observations, wonderings on my contemporary stakes, as well as the gaze that I see the world,” she concludes.