W&I Design

With the urban renewal of the early 1990s, Jean-Michel Wilmotte developed new values for urban identities: the designers began to think about the coherence and rationalisation of functions, the suitability for public use and the imperatives of safety, durability and maintenance, making urban design one of Wilmotte & Industries’ major specialities. Wilmotte & Industries often works in old town centres, respecting the history of the site and its heritage. The timeless style of the design studio is adapted to these spaces, which must be durable and accessible to all. Numerous development projects and street furniture installations, in France and abroad, have given rise to a number of collections for major manufacturers in the sector: JCDecaux, Hess, Eclatec, GHM, etc.

Some of the objects designed by the design studio have become emblematic of the city of Paris: the furniture and lighting for the Champs-Elysées and the Maréchaux tramway, and the elegant Bagatelle litter bin, of which more than 35,000 have been installed.

Lighting, so important to architecture, has been a subject developed by designers for many years, whether for lighting giants or smaller companies. When it comes to architectural lighting, the sector’s major manufacturers such as Zumtobel, iGuzzini and Thorn regularly submit highly technical specifications to the design studio, resulting in the creation of innovative products that are perfectly adapted to market needs. Decorative lighting is not forgotten either, with the production of numerous models designed for Artemide and Lumina in particular.

Depending on demand, the design can be classic and elegant, to fit in with heritage architecture, or resolutely contemporary and innovative, like all the research carried out since the turn of the 2010s, when LEDs, a new miniaturised light source with low energy consumption, came on the scene.

Fabric is a material in a class of its own, both a ‘product’ when sold ready-made, and above all a guarantor of a certain style when it comes to personalising interiors and furniture. Jean-Michel Wilmotte understood the multiple possibilities offered by textile design at a very early age: right from the start of his career, in the mid-1970s, he developed a passion for textile design and the various weaving techniques, in particular the Jacquard loom, creating numerous collections for Suzanne Fontan, Casal, Jean Roze silks and Nobilis. In 2022, the Wilmotte & Industries studio revived this expertise by developing a collection of tablecloths, placemats and napkins for Jacquard Français, as well as a collection of furnishing fabrics published by Lelièvre Paris.

This taste for textile design has also manifested itself in the creation of carpets since the early 1980s, and continues today with the creation of several collections currently under development.