118 119AVENTURA MAGAZINE AUGUST 2015

ADDICTED

DESIGNROCHE BOBOIS DESIGNER

SACHA LAKIC GREW

UP IN A EUROPEAN

ENVIRONMENT ILLUSTRATED

WITH FASHION, FLAIR

AND FUTURISTIC IMAGES,

ALL OF WHICH INSPIRED

HIS EXTRAORDINARY

FUNCTIONAL WORKS OF ART.

TOBY LINDA MARX

Lakic’s Dyna Chairs for Roche Bobois are solid beech with a stained, metallic lacquer finish. The one-leg design makes the chair appear as if it is floating. Legs are done in a brushed, chrome-plated finish.

120 121AVENTURA MAGAZINE AUGUST 2015

ALTHOUGH AS A CHILD SACHA LAKIC was encouraged to follow in his father’s footsteps toward a career in fashion design, the creative boy had his own ideas. “I was attracted to my dad’s trade but was more taken with speed and technology,” says Lakic, 50, who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and raised in Paris, where his father devoted his life to the art of styling fabric for major French couture houses.

One day, while on his way to school, the 8-year-old Lakic spied a metallic green Ford Mustang, an experience he believes was a defining moment in his life. “I was bewitched by its sleek lines and felt a deep desire to draw it until I could reproduce contours as perfectly as those of the original model,” says Lakic during a recent interview at the opening of Roche Bobois Paris in Aventura, where he was the com-pany’s featured guest. “I always liked car designs from the 1950s and ‘60s. I became addicted to the power of design.”

By age 17, the self-taught designer was creating motorcycles at a level that made him realize his own talents and convinced him to pursue his passion. At 20, he apprenticed at Peugeot’s interior design department; that was followed by a star turn at another design agency. Between 1986 and 1988, Lakic designed the Kawasaki Atlantic, Yamaha Axis and Suzuki Squale. All of his futuristic

prototypes, and there were many, made waves in the motorcycle world.

During that period, he learned more about industrial design, architecture, graphic art and photography. He studied the work of ingenious architects, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and furniture designer Pierre Paulin. “While the car and motorcycle were my early interests,” says Lakic, “eventually I turned to furniture design.”

A few years later, he opened the Sacha Lakic Design Co. in Paris so he could broaden his reach to include furniture, fashion accessories and futuristic cars. He says that his foray into furniture was quite by accident and happened when he was designing bikes and cars. “I met Francois Roche, who thought my work would translate to furniture,” says Lakic of the architect and one of the founders of Roche Bobois Paris. Lakic’s first piece of furniture was the Onda bed—the name means “wave” in Italian—for the company; the bed’s design won the Casaidea prize in Rome.

After that, Lakic began to collaborate with Roche Bobois Paris from time to time, introducing his Speed Up Collection, inspired by the 1960s revival and his love for fast cars, in 2005. The collection of lacquered pieces—a dining table, chair, sideboard, computer unit, a low table, a console and a chaise longue—offered in a

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: The Bel-Air Sofa, part of Roche Bobois’ indoor/outdoor collection, has a base of lacquered aluminum and removable slipcovers made of custom Missoni fabric; the White Plate-forme sectional made in Roche Bobois leather features feather-stuffed cushions; the Ublo wood table’s veneer comes in ebony, wenge or gray, or in lacquered medium density fiberboard with a gloss or matte finish. OPPOSITE: Designer Sacha Lakic. BELOW: The Brio Chair is made from beechwood and available in a range of wood stains and fabric or leather-like technological fabric colors.

PHO

TO: J

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Paul

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122 123AVENTURA MAGAZINE AUGUST 2015

range of 27 colors, stood out as extraordi-nary for its streamlined forms. “Each of the elements in that series manages to express the idea behind the movement powerfully,” he explains. “I put emotion connected to motion into my furniture designs.”

For example, the movement with storage furniture design is where the interiors seem to project curved, lacquered fronts. The movement with slender tables has integral bases; the sofas have aerodynami-cally curved contours. “My role sometimes consists of reconciling things which are opposed in principle: the rational and the

emotional, enjoyment and safety, industry and sentiment,” he explains. “I like to arouse in people the desire to see, to touch and to use my creations, or simply to feel their presence.”

Today, as a top designer for Roche Bobois Paris, Lakic, who is single, has children and now lives in the fairytale-like Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, designs furniture because it’s what he loves. His fluid and sleek lines, dynamic volumes and lustrous lacquered finishes are some of the favorites of Roche Bobois executives. “Sacha is the most prolific designer,” says

Julian Bigan, the company’s communica-tions director for the US. “We show twice a year, and he does amazing furniture for both collections.”

Lakic, who designs couches, chairs, tables and many custom pieces, left Paris five years ago for Luxembourg because it is green, peaceful and international, and he can ride his bike and enjoy the landscape. He needed to take a break from Paris, despite all of its romantic charms. “Paris is a love story but like with a couple, you have to put air in between,” he believes.

Laic creates about 20 pieces a year for

Roche Bobis Paris’ 250 global stores as well as for the company’s private clients. He works with a variety of materials like traditional glass, plywood, contempo-rary urban fiber, even plastic. His design approach means performing an act of creation in an industrial environment. He attempts to create intelligent objects that pollute neither the environment, nor man, nor the minds of man. “I believe form can only be beautiful if the context itself is good,” he says.

Some of his current designs for Roche Bobois Paris include his exclusive Bubble Sofa, a three-seat piece made of solid wood. It is covered in the company’s high-density techno fabric and wows in bright yellow or red. The collection includes an ottoman and cocktail table. His Scenario Modular Sofa comprises one three-seat piece, two loungers, a table and an arm unit. Upholstered in Soave leather, it has contrasting stitching that highlights the shape of the sofa. Metallic legs are black with a chrome finish. A rocking mecha-nism allows for formal, shallow seating as well as lounge seating in one straight sofa. “You can change the usage from formal to informal,” he notes. The Dyna chairs are solid beech with a stained, metallic lacquer finish. The legs are brushed with chrome-plated finish. And the unusual one-leg design makes the chair appear as if it is floating.

Although 60 percent of his work is furniture design for Roche Bobois Paris, Lakic also creates electric cars, motor-bikes and eyewear for other companies. He loves the diversity, and feels design-ing one type of product only whets his appetite to design others.

“Motorcycles, furniture, clothes, cars and everyday objects are far from being a problem for me,” he explains. “Plurality is instead an exciting stimulant. My experi-ence in one field enriches the others and enables me to take a fresh look at each object. Creating beautiful objects through a labyrinth of constraints is the most powerful aphrodisiac.”

CLOCKWISE: The designer’s Bubble Sofa has a solid wood foundation and is covered in high-density techno fabric exclusive to Roche Bobois that comes in various vivid colors, including red; from Lakic’s Speed Up Collection comes the Waterdrop sideboard, which uses a transformative finishing process called Daquacryl; Lakic’s earlier designed Quantum Sofa, from a previously available collection, seats three and is upholstered in Alpilles leather with tone-on-tone stitching.