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Tsé
& Tsé Associées: Designing objects which speak for themselves
Interview with Catherine Lévy
 Catherine was waiting for me on a Friday
evening in their workshop in rue Moreau, in the Bastille neighborhood of Paris.
She was seated at a large table, holding a small cigarette in one hand and
the telephone in another. She was very
composed, her wavy hair fell almost at her shoulders in a bob, with delicate bejeweled hair clips holding it on one side. She wore a natural smile, the expression of
someone genuinely content with where she is.
For anyone else, blue hair might seem out of the ordinary. Not for Catherine, who wears her love for India
from the jewels in her hair to the hem of her pants, and not at the workshop of
Tsé & Tsé Associées.
Catherine Lévy and Sigolène Prébois, who
both grew up in Paris, actually met before studying at the Parisian School of
Design (L’école Nationale Supérieure de la Création Industrielle). Fifteen years ago they decided to start a
design firm designing things that made them happy. Their approach to business over the past
fifteen years can be described as anything but typical. “In the beginning we made things that nobody
would have bet one rupee on their success,” Catherine said of their vast
assortment of products ranging from tableware to lamps, stationery, and
everything in between. They are right— who would have ever considered buying
irregular porcelain plates for their home 15 years ago, or a flower vase made
up of set of ‘test tubes’ linked together by adjustable metal rings? There are no guarantees that once a piece is
produced, it will remain in production.
This decision depends largely on how Catherine and Sigolène feel about
the pieces themselves, not on sales data.
Despite their unconventional business acumen (which Catherine would say
isn’t acumen at all, but just feeling), they have been and continue to be
successful.
 The office, today staffed with eight more
people, is quite like taking a step inside the brain of a restless, creative
inventor. Pieces of products, models,
and prototypes hang in the air, cover the work tables, and are attached to the
walls. Samples of finished products,
already in production, line the window sills and shelves, and hang from the
ceiling, in the room where we talk.
After little more than an hour, the room already feels familiar and the
objects like cherished possessions which make a house a home. They have succeeded at capturing their own
feelings for a product within the product itself. The objects really do speak for themselves in
a way which is quite difficult to describe in words. Perhaps they are anachronistic and timeless
at the same time, but the emotional connection with the item is immediate. (Photo of studio at dusk)
The interview with Catherine is more of a
conversation about her friendship with Sigolène and their determination to have
fun and be happy doing something they love, which has accompanied them along
this journey. If you never have the
chance to meet one of Tsé & Tsé or see any of their designs in person, you
can almost replicate the experience of what Catherine and Sigolène are like by
visiting their website. Full of hidden
surprises, richness of detail, everything is a little quirky, and each little
thing makes you want to learn more. You
become so enthralled, the memory just stays stamped on your brain.
Tsé
& Tsé design
philosophy.
There is no proper philosophy. Just the will of what we use ourselves. Our products aren’t aimed at specific people
or gaps in the market. We’ve found over
the years that the less we worry whether an object will sell, the better it
sells. Our approach is to design things
that we ourselves want to use, so when we design something, first we live with
it, and if after that we don’t like it, we don’t produce it.
What
is the greatest and most consistent challenge you face?
Producing at the right price. Having ideas is easy. The hard part is making things happen. The ideas have to be produced. We design and produce.
How
do you work through your ideas from beginning to end? Does it start with a sketch?
…Sigolène and I have ideas, then we get two
pens, a piece of paper, and then we work.
Then the phone rings, and we get distracted, and then we get up to do
something else, and the idea sits, and maybe we come back to it a few weeks
later because we had too many things to do in the meantime.
 Which
strengths do each of you bring to the design process and everyday running of
the studio?
We have a terribly bad partnership. Everything is fifty-fifty— we are the exact same. We have the exact same strengths and exact
same weaknesses. Neither of us can
calculate, although she’s a little bit better than I am. We don’t complement each other at all.
As for running the company…it’s not
run! Now my nephew works here. We took him for lunch the other day and when
we told him that for years, at the beginning when we started, we did it all
ourselves, and he couldn’t believe it.
Obviously after a while, it got to be impossible because our products
were successful and there was too much to do, so we hired people. Today about ten people, including ourselves,
work here in the studio. (Cartoon drawing by Sigolene. Catherine is the bear on the left, Sigolene is the squirrel!)
How
do you set your professional goals together?
We never have. Our goal is to be happy, have fun, and make
enough money to live. When we look at
where we are and think that we have managed to make a living doing what we love,
we still think it’s a miracle.
I was talking to another Parisian designer who knows and really likes your work.
How does hearing praise affect you?
People say lots of things. Good and bad.
But of all the compliments that people have paid us over the years, the
best is the relationship that people have with our designs. When we first started, we didn’t want out
friends to have to pay retail prices for what we designed, we wanted them to be
accessible. So, we started inviting friends
to our workshop each year at Christmas for a private sale. In the beginning this was just one or two
days, now it lasts two weeks, and Sigolène and I are here for all of it. Now, some of the people who come don’t know
that we are the artists responsible for the products, they don’t recognize
us. When we hear them say, “Everyday,
when I drink my coffee in your cups at breakfast, I really enjoy it” , it
really makes us happy. Once you love
something and you see that other people connect with it as well, the objects
speak by themselves. That’s the best
compliment we receive.
 What
role does being a “designer” play in your life?
It doesn’t mean anything. In French it’s a vague word. For us designing is a way of living. We never felt the need to adapt to what’s
there. We were never satisfied with what
was out there, and so we designed for ourselves. Designing is just our way of existing. We just two poor neurotic girls.
How
has the media influenced or changed design since you started Tse-Tse?
In the beginning design in France
meant nothing. There was nothing for the
home, no magazines, nothing. Since we
started, spending on design has increased, stores for the home exist at all
levels for interior products. Now you
see tons of magazines and print media dedicated to interiors, but I think it’s
over-covered and people aren’t paying attention anymore. Philippe Starck made the word “design” exist
in France. He made people understand
that everything in their home, from the smallest, seemingly most insignificant
object was designed. He is very clever,
very smart. I admire what he did, and
he’s an act that is really impossible to follow. (Above: Igloos de nuit, lighting)
What
motivates you?
Our motivation is part of our DNA. Right now, Sigolène is in Bretagne, she’s
hugely pregnant, less than a month from delivery, and every time I talk to her
she’s up and about doing things. I tell
her she should be resting, but she won’t have it. She has to be doing something always. That’s how we are.
What
would you like to work on? What’s next?
Many things, different things. A hotel, a restaurant, a shop, a
gallery. We don’t know what’s going to
happen next. It could be a knife, more
lamps… But for some of these things it
would take way too much money. We
learned early on that when it’s your money, you call the shots. If we’re hired by someone else to design a
hotel, it’s unlikely that we’ll have free reign to design it the way we’d like.
Time
Capsule: Which three of your designs
would you include in a time capsule that say the most about you and the times
we live in?
The ones I’d choose also happen to be our
most successful designs, but they have particular significance to us.
Vase
d’Avril:
Technically, this is a design which could have happened 1000 years
ago. It’s of glass and metal. It’s logical that in a bunch of flowers
people would have arranged them in this way.
We were interested in seeing the flowers, not the vases. People can decide how to display the flowers
however they want. I’ve had this vase
for fifteen years and have never arranged them in the same way. (left)
Garland. At the time we designed this, about ten years
ago, it was right after the ‘boom’ in halogen lamps. All the technical problems of halogen lamps
had been resolved. But halogen lamps
still gave this strong harsh light. We
made this strand of lights with soft lighting that we only realized afterwards
filled a gap that was missing in the market.
We hadn’t paid any attention to it at the time. When we presented it, journalists kept
calling it “Christmas garland”, and we were like, “It’s NOT CHRISTMAS
GARLAND!!!” But anyway, when you wake up
in the morning and turn this on, it’s so soft and not aggressive at all. (right)
Porcelain
Story. This
was created about ten years ago, too.
Ten years ago here, we’d had enough of ‘perfection’. Plastic surgery, perfect lives, everybody was
in the pursuit of perfection. We created
these plates which are all irregular, all different as a response to that. I still have a set I’ve used since then, I
use them every day. (left: Assiettes Affamee)
 What
food/dessert best describes your design style? For
this, Sigolène and I are very different.
Very very different. I think she
would say a salad bowl full of the reddest most beautiful cherries. For me it’s endless…all food that’s related
to a culture, coming from a particular place with a history, the evocation of
whatever that is.
How
has it changed over the years?
We got older.
What
would you like it to be in five years?
Alive, in good health, and not only older
but wiser and full of good energy.
The
first thing you notice in a restaurant?
Everything.
The restaurant has to be nice, welcoming, good atmosphere. One thing I love in Italy,
which we don’t have in France or anywhere else, is the exhibition of the day’s “best” on a table
at the entry, so when you arrive, you’re greeted by a basket of porcini
mushrooms, or truffles, or whatever.
Eating
what food brings back the best memories?
So many things, so many, so many, I can’t
choose just one. There were these
incredible cheese ravioli at the Russian Canteen of the Conservatoire de
Musique Rachmaninoff. It was such trash food, but now Russian food here in Paris is so chic,
you can’t find them anymore. Then there
is cheese from the mountains that I ate, Beaufort. And there was a Cerac that was cheese made
with all the left over casein of the other cheeses that I ate when I was
little, but they don’t make it anymore.
The
last piece of art you fell in love with?
A French artist called Kader Attia. He just
made an installation called “Fridges” and he is showing at the Art Biennale of Lyon nowadays.
 The
first piece of furniture you bought for your home? Where is it now?
Oh, that’s hard…Probably a table made of
three rounds of wood that could go beneath each other. I have no idea where it is now!
No
home is complete without…
…A bed, an oven, many things. I have to have many things. For Sigolène it’s not like that.
Magazine
or website, information source you can’t live without.
I don’t need any of them.
You’ll
always pick up a magazine if ___________________ is on the cover?
Maybe a picture of India, or
a ruby, or a diamond. A diamond. I like diamonds.
You’re
most proud of your collection of…
Everything!
Twenty pairs of shoes, handbags, whatever…it’s not a collection of one
thing, I know, but it’s still a collection, of my things.
(Above: Cornettes, lighting)
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