Michèle Lamy
Michèle Lamy is a mesmeric force of intention. As a co-founding partner of Owenscorp and the executive manager of the Rick Owens furniture collection, her life is a tactile one. The jewelled mouth, the smudged, blackened fingertips, the clank of bangles and the dulcet French drawl are Lamy’s talismanic armour and invitation. She creates opulently monastic home furnishings and sculptures in metal, bone, wood, cement and stone – and cocoons herself in silk, wool, leather, nylon and languid plumes of cigarette smoke.
When we speak via Zoom in mid-August, Lamy is fresh from an appointment with the butcher. ‘We have been doing some furniture pieces in ox bone, which looks just like ivory, and we needed some more,’ she says. ‘The artisans at the atelier like it so much because they always get a serving of filet mignon, too.’ In a few days, Lamy will travel to Venice for the second edition of the Floating Cinema – Unknown Waters festival, for which she asked filmmaker Matt Lambert to curate a series of short films. Next up, she is unveiling a large-scale monochromatic sculptural work at Design Miami Basel. Lamy is always on the move.
‘I like to think that I don’t know when something
