We Like(d)
The French female artists for Summer 2023 
To earn the reputation of the most artful kids’ fashion and lifestyle trade show, you need more than just an expertly curated selection of brands. You also need inspirational artwork, a sense of discovery, beauty around every corner. Luckily for us, we have just the expertise to find amazing talents that bring our ideas to reality to continuously earn this reputation. For Summer 2023, Playtime Paris will welcome four amazing French female artists to bring the show to life!
Working with different mediums, coming from different stylistic backgrounds and cultural heritages, these women create artwork that will catch your eye and inspire your soul. Because we can’t wait to discover their incredible artwork either, let us introduce you to the amazing French female artists whose world’s you’ll soon be immersed in as you explore the aisles of The Big Small Show.
Photo by Sebastien Dolidon
Amélie Lengrand is a French architect, set designer, and visual artist. Her work can be characterized by the diversity of mediums and techniques that she uses: sculpture, painting on canvas, silk, paper and wood, porcelain, and braiding. Inspired by dreams and her language, her works reveal landscapes that play with different meanings and layers. Through a set of repetitions, superpositions, and accumulations, Amélie uses the pattern as a visual structure to dress the space or frame.
Working on a range of collaborations, Amélie has created suspended sculptures for the Molitor swimming pool, woven wood for the windows of Maison Hermès, and a mosaic of recycled leather for l’Atleier Laps are just a few of the amazing creations she has completed. Recently, she has designed a dreamlike landscape print for the French eco-luxury brand Olistic The Label as well as braided furniture and interlocking supports for the windows of Maison Matisse.
Amélie opens the doors for all of us to step into her colorful dreamworld. This year, she is also the scenographer for the entire Playtime Paris show, creating the inspiring space that you can find around every corner of the Parc Floral.
Her artwork will also be featured in the Sunbeam trend space curated by Fashion Snoops.
Manon Oller is a ceramic artist born in Strasbourg in 1993. Of Franco-Andulisian origin, she happily cites the Mediterranean as a source of inspiration. Geological or architectural, arid or lush, real or fantastic, this area forms an aesthetic horizon that nourishes her work that is constantly renewed by the discoveries she makes there.
In 2020, she moved to Lyon and founded La Mano Studio. What interests Manon in her research of forms is to question the porous nature between sculpture and design. Her creations are based on the playful principle of combining shapes, textures, materials, and colors. She is inspired by antique and utopian architecture and modular design. Her trips in Andalusia, Greece, Italy, and Morocco have also given her new ideas. The local architecture, from Moroccan kasbahs to homes carved into the rocks of Turkey and Andalusia, interest her with their inventiveness of form and the beauty of nature they underline. Crossing the ages, the pieces by La Mano Studio are playful. They take those who see them to the crossroads of territories and time.
Step into the crossroads with her work in the Meander trend space by Fashion Snoops.
After defining herself for years by paintings and sculptures, Héléna Guy Lhomme discovered the richness and potential of wool. Now her preferred medium, she discovered its diversity from Slavic artists while residing in Moscow. During the global pandemic, wool became a cathartic outlet as Héléna explored this lively and ecological material that made her feel connected to the outside world and her past. This soft medium that represents femininity and the home molded by hundreds of thousands of needle strokes renewed her creative spirit.
She found that when everyday life is restricted, living is summed up by haunting rituals. Little by little, this lead to her finding inspiration in meals and food. Her work became an exploration of our role, the madness of our world, and the power of cultural heritage. From her childhood she was fascinated with Dutch still life and chiaroscuro of the Spanish golden age. She began creating trompe-l’oeil sculptures that were blemishes of reality. She has since shifted towards more contemporary inspirations. Héléna is exploring the female form and food, sensuality and vanity, fragility and madness in her artwork. At the same time, she is diving into her relationship with her own body. It is perishable, adorned, threatened, simultaneously offering and obliterating, an object to be coveted. Throughout these subjects of dread, the wool gradually reconciles in a burst of laughter echoes of ancient vanities.
Find her thought-provoking pieces in the space to chill.
Jennifer Hugot is a French artist who lives and works in Aubervilliers. Her work explores color and repetition through paint, cut paper, and the endless rhythms of weaving. She has made the choice to work with paper, yet textiles are constantly alluded to in her artwork. Her way of thinking in warps and wefts echoes the ancestral technique of weaving that fascinates her. Jennifer plays with our perception by combining bright colors and repeating lines. In this way, she takes us along on her quest for rhythm and her obsession with color.
Find her wonderful weaving in the Press and VIP Lounge.
What incredible women! With their unique styles and aesthetics, we cannot wait to explore the show and discover the work of these four amazing French female artists. We are so happy to welcome them to bring our show to life! Get your pass to come get inspired by them July 1-3, and if you need something to tide you over until then you can explore the artists from last season here.
