Young interior designers go bold at Design Parade Toulon

The winners of the most recent edition of the Design Parade festival have been announced, and we were particularly struck by the boldness of the young interiors designers who participated in the competition this year. While the older half of the festival—Design Parade Hyères—has become a reliable platform for spotting emerging talent in the realm of object design over the last decade, Design Parade Toulon, just in its third edition, has blossomed into a lovely showcase for cutting-edge trends in interiors.

Of the ten projects exhibited at Design Parade Toulon, two winners were chosen to receive the Van Cleef & Arpels Grand Prix of €5,000 each: Grotto by Kim Haddou and Florent Dufourcq and The Corniche’s Secret by Antoine Chauvin. The former wowed the jury with its breezy but highly textured sophistication, defined by a strict palette of white and terracotta—save for that jazzy, sunshine-yellow-striped ceiling. And the latter drew accolades for its ascetic-chic vibe, dominated by pure and simple geometric forms steeped in deep blue and putty white.

The Eyes on Talents x Frame Special Mention went to Bérengère Botti and Sophie Genestoux for their En Trompe-L’Oeil interior, which wholeheartedly embraced the optical effects of a tiled walls and ceiling, interrupted by faux archways—like a dreamscape from a more introverted doppelgänger of Nanda Vigo.

Beyond the young contestants' installations, Design Parade Toulon offered exhibitions designed by a handful of established interior designers. The president of this year's jury, Pierre Yovanovitch, created a sprawling series of provactative rooms, each dedicated to a different eye-catching color palette. Another standout includes an immersive space designed by Pierre Marie, who exploited the deeply hued shadows of the stainglass windows to striking effect.

All of the Design Parade Toulon's installations, though, were inspiring—the way the designers engaged the architectural setting through daring wall treatments; their selection of super strong silhouettes; and, most radically, their commitment to distinctive color palettes that even five years ago would have seemed too outré. Scroll through the slideshow above to get inspired by these rising stars of interior design.

During the Design Parade festival, we invited one of the Hyères contestants, Anaïs Borie, to take over our Instagram account. In case you missed, go check it out! Her posts can be found in our IG Stories.

Design Parade Hyères, 13th International Festival of Design, and Design Parade Toulon, 3rd International Festival of Interior Design, remain on view through September 30, 2018.