Milan 2024: Roche Bobois unveils its new collaboration with Chinese artist and designer Jiang Qiong Er

Written by

Roche Bobois

24 June 2024

•

3 min read

By naming this collection “Bamboo Mood”, the designer wanted to introduce a metaphor around bamboo, a powerful symbol in Chinese culture. The plant represents the key values of integrity, resilience, simplicity and harmony. Jiang Qiong Er reinterprets these values with a poetic spin – an approach that breaks with convention while also exuding elegance. The collection comprises a sofa, a screen, a console, and cocktail tables, together with rugs and ceramics.

Born in Shanghai as the daughter of an artist and the granddaughter of an architect, Jiang Qiong Er graduated with a degree in art and design from Shanghai’s prestigious Tong Ji university. She also studied modern languages in Nice and design and interior architecture at the École des arts décoratifs (School of Decorative Arts) in Paris. Hermès noted with keen interest the artist and designer's commitment to reviving traditional Chinese craftsmanship. Together, the brand and Jiang Qiong Er founded Shang Xia in 2009 – an authentic, innovative and contemporary embodiment of China’s age-old way of life. Faithful to a rich cultural heritage that she loves to transcend by building bridges between past and future, Jiang Qiong Er instills her projects with ample meaning and emotion, balanced by a playful spin. She is now focusing on personal artistic endeavors and collaborations with major international brands, such as Roche Bobois with the Bamboo mood collection. “I have known Roche Bobois for more than 20 years,” she says, “and I appreciate the brand’s generous and very diverse spirit, both in terms of style and culture: bright, colorful collections offer a fresh yet faithful interpretation of the French art de vivre.”

Bamboo is a strong symbol in China that many ancient poems use as a metaphor for life. That is why Jiang Qiong Er chose bamboo as the inspiration for her collection. It is an invitation to inhabit a poetic universe imbued with contrasts, specifically a Chinese lounge with a highly contemporary spirit, where Jiang Qiong Er calls up tradition to express her Asian culture. Adding a joyful, dynamic touch to uplift each piece’s clean lines, Jiang Qiong Er used two colors: coral, a symbolic color in Asia, and celadon, the very light green found in the first pieces of Chinese porcelain. A contrasting line highlights the sofa’s curves and the screen’s graphic stripes.

Bamboo has always fascinated me. Elegant, resilient, fluid, and peaceful, it counters strong winds with insolence and play. Bamboo bends but does not break. It whispers, trembles, filters the light, and plays with shadow. Timeless. It may seem fragile, yet it provides scaffolding for the world’s tallest skyscrapers. I designed this new bamboo-inspired collection as an invitation to travel; an inexhaustible source of inspiration, poetry, and dreams.

SCREENS

Graceful lines depict slender shoots gathered in a perforated screen - an iconic piece in the Chinese decorative arts. Whether fully expanded or kept closer together, the four openwork panels prompt a dialog between spaces rather than closing them off.

CONSOLES

A key piece in the Asian repertoire, its base reveals the same bamboo pattern as the screen.

SOFAS

A plump, soft headrest offers a supple interpretation of the woody stem. It sits atop a generous sofa that seems to harbor ancient wisdom while also providing cozy comfort.

COCKTAIL TABLES

The cocktail tables resemble a bamboo stem cut around the node, available in a lacquered monochrome version or with a wood-effect top.

RUGS

Based on a hand-crafted design meticulously rendered in vibrant hues, an assortment of graceful bamboo canes embellishes the wool rugs.