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The up-and-coming
design company that
keeps on climbing is called
Natives. Based in Peypin, the
company is specialized in useful
decorative objects, with a vintage look and a touch of fun.
By Jean-Dominique Dalloz - September 30, 2011
Some of the best stories have humble beginnings. In the case of Natives, we can even call it an accidental birth. Around the end of the '90s, while fixing his windsurfer in his garage, the young Grégory Deltour dropped a piece of biscuit in his pot of resin. A curse later, he fishes it out and places it on the edge of his workbench. The resin dries on the biscuit and gives Grégory an idea: why not make fun jewelry out of food? Success is not long in coming, and his hair clips, necklaces
and brooches mixing resin, biscuits or candy fly off the shelves. While on a trip to Asia, the young self-taught designer meets a Thai family hat creates distinctive wooden objects. With them he produced a range of retro-inspired products, like spice jars, that he now distributes in France. Only just on its feet, Natives takes a stand at the Maison et Objets trade fair and gets noticed with its shiny wooden objects, which Grégory had the excellent idea of decorating with
different slogans conjuring up the '50s and '60s. The flipside to the coin of his success is that copies start flooding the market. To bounce back, Natives needed to renew its inspiration. Audrey Theis’ arrival in 2008 allowed the company to reinvent itself. From then on, the two designers have lived, in their own words, a perfect “laugh affair.” While continuing the range of wooden objects, their creativity has developed around metal trends. In a sector where the recession had imposed a gloomy atmosphere, Natives accelerated and published close to 200 new releases that year. Since then,napkin holders, kitchen scales,
timers, and cereal containers are among the selection of objects that have passed through the unbridled imagination of Grégory and Audrey, who admit to having lots of fun while working. To the subtle mix of French retro and American vintage styles, Natives adds a touch of humor, which turns each design into an object “with real bits of fun inside.”
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