My subconscious picked the products – #113

We’re planning a few days in Paris in October, so France has been on my mind recently. Which might be why, without noticing until I lined them up, three of this week’s five turned out to be French.

Apparently the trip has already started, at least in the part of my brain responsible for bookmarks…

If you’re new around here: Every week, I share 5 of the nicest products from Europe I’ve discovered in the past 7 days.

I scout, you explore.

With love 🌞
Jakob

P.S.: Missed the last edition? The watches from Semper & Adhuc were the most-clicked product. (… and yes, they’re also from France.)

Lola Chambaud makes this little purse by hand from reclaimed, vegetable-tanned cowhide, with linen thread and a stainless-steel snap. The orange is unapologetically bright, I like it.

Designed by Arthur Gaudenz, Polimair’s Baiji arrives flat-packed and is made in France from recycled polypropylene. Its three feet clip together, allowing several stools to become a shelf, side table, room divider, or rather cheerful totem. Even the included screwdriver is made from the same material.

A white, gold-embossed box containing nine 50-gram soaps, each with its own scent, color, and Art Deco-inspired wrapper. Claus Porto draws the designs from the packaging that made its name in the early twentieth century; the soaps themselves have a vegetable base enriched with shea oil.

The A4 print is cheerful and easy to frame, but the better story is the shop behind it. Nozomi Horibe and Gregor Suchan started Studio Tampopo in 2020 as an online papeterie for Berlin illustrators and artists.

Handmade and assembled by cutlers in Thiers, this table knife gets its proportions deliberately wrong: a long handle paired with a short 14C28N steel blade. lOlO says the shape may provide a topic of conversation at dinner. At the very least, it should reveal who has opinions about knives.