Only Time Will Tell: Les Ateliers Courbet x Pointy Snout

“It’s about quality of material, craftsmanship, and the appreciation of time."
— Melanie Courbet

Entering Les Ateliers Courbet is like entering a shrine—one evolved from a devotion tocraftsmanship and heritage luxury goods. You cross the threshold into a space made holy-like. It’s associated with a divinity of serene yet declarative sovereignty. This is a place of elegant design and beautiful objects. You stand from a distance and suss out your impressions. It hits you: connoisseurship is bouncing off every atom of the realm, but you feel lighthearted. How can an environment so beautiful, so thoughtfully conceived and curated, come across at once as two opposites? Profound here, and there playful and welcoming?

There’s intelligence behind all this. Skill too, and not a little magic. Melanie Courbet’s gift. Five years ago, Pointy was honored to attend Melanie’s launch of her first studio in Nolita. We served up caviar. Melanie served up a picture-perfect room of elegance. Since then, she’s moved her gallery and showroom to West Chelsea (and opened an outpost at Miami’s Surf Club). The gallery is esteemed the world over, and now represents more than 30 master craftsmen and designers.

It was an especial pleasure to co-host the opening reception of Gianluca Pacchioni in the new Chelsea location. We joined Italian dignitaries and hoteliers, friends of the artist, and leading lights from the design world. Our caviar was uncommonly good. So much so that, as the evening unfurled, people stopped pretending it was resistible.