Long before fast furniture and mass production, Art Deco workshops showed how true excellence is born, designer and artisan creating together. The movement left a lasting mark on interiors, fashion and the arts, and the very term “Art Deco” comes from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, an event so popular it was extended to welcome more than 16 million visitors and 15,000 exhibitors from twenty countries. Art Deco became an international phenomenon. 

Yet the real heartbeat of Art Deco wasn’t in the exhibition halls; it pulsed inside the ateliers. In these creative sanctuaries, designers and craftsmen partnered to produce furniture and objects that embodied what we now call workshop excellence – a tradition of rare materials, craftsmanship and shared vision. Seminal Art Deco designers such as Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand and Andre Groult all operated their own workshops while others such as Eileen Gray and Jean-Michel Frank partnered with famous names in their craft such as ebeniste, Adolphe Chavaux and lacquer artist, Seizo Sugawara. Today Alexander Lamont carries forward the spirit of workshop excellence in the brand’s Bangkok ateliers, where local artisans and designers collaborate to marry timeless technique with contemporary design. 

The workshop itself is central to this legacy. Within its utilitarian walls, materials such as lacquer, straw marquetry, parchment and shagreen invite a slow, almost ritual practice. Eggshell is applied in a mosaic of tiny meticulous pieces; gilding is finished with the gentlest of brushstrokes; straw marquetry demands patient preparation and the precise arrangement of every blade. But the magic lies beyond technique: in the scent of fresh lacquer, the eye that catches a subtle gleam, the hands that adjust the material by instinct. These gestures of creativity, equal parts art and craft, give each piece its life and energy. 

We recently worked with a French photographer Mathilde Hiley who spent a day capturing the life of our workshops through her own very particular lens. The following photo-essay is the result of her day with us.

Each piece of our furniture is bench-made by individual cabinet-makers

Eggshell lacquer requires patience and meticulous attention to detail

The atmosphere of the workshop is almost meditational, a chance to reflect

Natural parchment is subtle and velvety to the touch, each piece selected for its unique character

In the shagreen atelier our artisans are masters of their material applying it beautifully to any shape or contour

Straw from the fields of Burgundy is applied ribbon by ribbon to a set of panels

The straw is hand-dyed in our workshop to custom colours

The assembly area is where we finally see the magic of every process coming together

Thank you to Mathilde Hiley for this beautiful portrait of a day in the life of our workshops.