GRAND NORD, pack ice in the living room

In a workshop, a sample of tousled wool, with an unremarkable design. Two people look at it. One asks the other whether she sees it too. The answer comes at once: one sees a bear. GRAND NORD was born of that instant, before any drawing. It is the collection of rugs and furniture that studio Messieurs signs for Diacasan Edition, and it is the one to look at when seeking a polar bear rug in which the animal lives in the material. The Nanuk rug carries the animal in its very substance: the generous, tousled wool serves as its fur. Around it, Arctique shows the bear swimming, Banquise its tracks, and the Iceberg armchair, the ottoman and the Ice Cube pouf extend the pack ice to seat height. The palette fits in a few words, white and an arctic blue. Winter suits it well.

The material before the drawing

GRAND NORD began with the material, and that is rare in the house. Ordinarily, an artist brings a drawing and we look for the workshop, the wool and the technique that will serve it. Here, the order was reversed. The artistic director was then looking for production in Europe and visiting a workshop that appealed to her at once, a place with a soul. What interested her was not what the workshop made, but what could be done with its tools. That is where the sample appeared.

It remained to know what to do with it. With a material this strong, a true drawing is needed, a design capable of carrying the wool. The house therefore wrote a brief, both precise and open. The polar bear, the pack ice, a world of ice and wild beauty. The rest belonged to the designers.

Why Messieurs?

Because their method always begins with a story. Messieurs is a design studio founded in Paris; each project there starts with a narrative, a mental setting, a scenario, before becoming an object. The studio knows the house well: it was the studio that conceived the scenography of the rue du Bac showroom, its limestone arches and deep niches.

The studio's imaginary world for GRAND NORD is precise: arctic landscapes, light bouncing off the ice, cabins of pale wood seen from the pack ice. Each piece, rug as well as armchair, keeps its trace, in a palette of bluish greys and brilliant whites, with motifs that recall the strata of ice. The studio has made of it a fragment of story that one can inhabit.

For GRAND NORD, the division of roles is clear. The designs are signed Messieurs. The artistic direction, the impulse and the choice of material come from the house. Sandrine sums up the studio's method in a sentence that appears on their page: “They told me the Far North before they drew it for me, and I believe it is that order which gives the collection all its strength.”

From the Nanuk rug to the Iceberg armchair

The collection was built around the bear, its totem animal. Nanuk is the central piece, the one in which wool becomes fur, published in four dimensions. Arctique and Banquise, published in three dimensions, render the animal through movement and through trace: the bear in the water, then the prints of its paws on the ice. The rugs are tufted in 100% wool.

Then came the desire for a seat. The request made to the studio fitted in a few words, “make me an iceberg”, and Messieurs entered into the game. The Iceberg armchair, which measures 95 cm wide and 107 cm high, became a centrepiece, strong enough that one looks at it before sitting in it. The Iceberg ottoman and the Ice Cube pouf complete the ensemble. All rest on a fir frame, built in upholsterer's construction, and are made in Italy, in a workshop that works in small series. They exist in two bouclette fabrics: Nanuk, in wool bouclette, and Excentric, a bouclette flecked with blue. The Iceberg cushions, square or rectangular, take up Excentric on one side and velvet on the other.

A white that must be watched

A white collection is a demanding collection. The white of a wool must be watched: it can drift towards yellow. During the development of GRAND NORD, a sample arrived with this drift. It was set aside at once: the collection demanded a pure white, without compromise, because it is the white that carries the light of the ice.

Arctic blue plays the opposite role. It answers the white and makes it stand out. A GRAND NORD cushion placed near a rug by Christian Signorel proves it: the two blues do not merge. That is intended. Each collection keeps its own light.

Bringing the pack ice into the living room

GRAND NORD works alone or in fragments. The Nanuk rug is enough to set the atmosphere; the Iceberg armchair placed upon it reveals the complete setting. The rugs go in living rooms, the armchairs in entrances, and the studio's handwriting takes over the room without cluttering it.

This autumn, we return to GRAND NORD. A collection takes time to settle; one must come back to it and have something new to say about it. This one gains from being seen when the cold arrives: the tousled wool, the white and the bouclette then take on their full meaning.

The collection also mingles with others. Today we like our collections to live together rather than in isolation, and we sometimes compose a living room with GRAND NORD and a SUR LE FIL rug by Renaud Allirand. Cushions and poufs are often the gateway to these pairings; we detail them in our article on cushions, poufs and mirrors. This freedom to bring different handwritings together belongs to the craft of a publisher, who chooses artists for what is singular in them.

Outside, it is freezing. Inside, the GRAND NORD collection keeps the white of the pack ice underfoot, tufted in pure wool, and an Iceberg armchair in upholsterer's construction, come from Italy.

Text written by the house of Diacasan Edition from interviews with Sandrine Demas and the records of the GRAND NORD collection, October 2026.