Learning to live with a roommate is about as quintessentially New York as black-and-white cookies or riding the subway. It’s a rite of passage that French textile company Élitis will experience when it starts sharing its showroom at the D&D building with subsidiary brand CMO Paris later this week.
The move marks CMO’s first showroom presence in North America, a decision that Élitis CEO Julie Marraud des Grottes says was a way of bringing CMO, which Élitis bought in 2017, closer to its customers. “At home in Paris, it is natural for CMO to have its own separate space,” says Marraud des Grottes. “CMO Paris was already working with American designers and architects from Paris before Élitis took it over. In the U.S., we want CMO to reinforce our relationships in this market so that the brand can benefit from Élitis’s 15 years of experience in America.”
CMO Paris CEO Frederic Vaudoiset echoes her statements, adding that not having a physical space in the States felt like “something was missing.”
CMO is committed to sustainably sourced, natural textiles, like hemp from Nepal or abaca, a plant from the banana family, from the Philippines. “The stories of these local artisans and their craftsmanship are being promoted across the world now,” says Vaudoiset. With a growing interest among the American design community in greener products, Marraud des Grottes and Vaudoiset felt the time was right to expand the brand’s footprint in North America. “Both of our brands support local crafting trades and their eco-systems, thus preserving unique know-how and its transmission from one generation to the next,” says Marraud des Grottes. “We feel the American audience is more and more sensitive to those aspects, and that is something we wish to share with them.”
Both agree that the brand will remain consistent across both markets, and are quick to add that the aesthetics of this new addition to the Élitis showroom, which will debut on October 10, are still very much within the CMO Paris DNA. “Since both lines are complementary, the Élitis showroom will be the perfect home for CMO Paris in New York,” says Marraud des Grottes. For his part, Vaudoiset hopes that the opening of the new space will give U.S. customers a chance to get to know the brand better. “I’d like our American consumers to see the knowledge and the craft that’s in the fabric and wallcoverings we provide, because this is something special.”
