Women&Design Innovation Awards: Where Creativity Meets Entrepreneurship
Saturday 6 September —
15:00
- 15:45
The Talks — Hall 6
Description
What if women were the future of design? Entrepreneurs, artists, designers... Maison&Objet is committed to spotlighting female talents in international design through its new Women&Design Innovation Awards.
Meet the two 2025 winners, Elaine Yan Ling Ng and Sophie Salager, who are dedicated to innovating while celebrating traditional craftsmanship.
Participants
Sophie SalagerManaging Director - Manufacture de Couleuvre
Elaine Yan Ling NgFounder - The Fabrick Lab
Julien SebbanFounder & President - Uchronia
Danièle GerkensJournalist
Sophie Salager
Managing Director - Manufacture de Couleuvre
An art historian by training, Sophie Salager has breathed new life into a gem of French industrial heritage: the Manufacture de Couleuvre, a porcelain factory founded in 1789. Captivated by this forgotten site, she undertook its revival in 2022-restoring the premises, reviving traditional craftsmanship, and repositioning the brand with a strong focus on cultural transmission. With a perspective that is both sensitive and entrepreneurial, she has transformed the manufacture into a laboratory of heritage innovation, blending reissued archival pieces with contemporary creations. Her project embodies a new approach to design-rooted, sustainable, and deeply human.
Elaine Yan Ling Ng
Founder - The Fabrick Lab
Designer, artist, and technologist, Elaine Yan Ling Ng is renowned for her biomimetic creations that blend traditional craftsmanship with technological innovation. Founder of The Fabrick Lab, she designs environmentally responsive textiles-reacting to light, humidity, and movement-pushing the boundaries of materials as storytelling tools. A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, her work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions such as the Victoria & Albert Museum. She has collaborated with Kvadrat, Swarovski, and Nature Squared. At the crossroads of science and poetry, her practice explores our relationship with the living world and offers a vision of design deeply rooted in ecology, emotion, and innovation.
Julien Sebban
Founder & President - Uchronia
A multidisciplinary collective more than a classical architecture firm, Uchronia takes its name from the reflection on fictitional and ephemeral time. The studio creates encompassing "places of experience", removing the barriers between technique and creativity. It transforms spaces by offering a complete artistic service ranging from architecture to layout, design and visual identity. Restaurants, apartments or fashion shows, the places designed by Uchronia have a singular and contemporary identity. In 2019, the agency won several major projects, including the renovation of the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as that of Galeries Lafayette.
Danièle Gerkens
Journalist
Editor-in-chief of ELLE Décoration, ELLE à table and Art & Décoration, Danièle Gerkens has a degree in Economics and in the History of Art and Religions. Born and raised in Africa, she has worked as a journalist for ELLE magazine after various experiences: copywriter at Publicis, consultant at UNESCO, cook at l'Arpège with Alain Passard... She is also the author of several books including "Zero Sugar", an investigation published by Les Arènes.