Aire continues its meetings! Discover the story of Bruce Ribay, the co-founder of NOMA Edition. He details his journey to creating this furniture company. He explains how eco-design is central to their business.
Can you introduce yourself in a few words?
My name is Bruce Ribay, and I'm the co-founder of Noma Editions with Guillaume Galloy. I'm an architect by training. I worked in the luxury sector for about twenty years. I was at Louis Vuitton. There I met Guillaume, who was an engineer. I was in charge of concepts for the boutiques. I also founded a consulting firm.
I left my old company to start Noma with the idea of leveraging our expertise, namely, high-end furniture. Guillaume and I try to attach the values we believe are important: responsibility and the ability to create a virtuous circle.
How did you get into the world of furniture and eco-design?
It's something Guillaume and I had in mind for a long time. We worked a lot on furniture when we were at luxury brands like Louis Vuitton. We wanted to create our own furniture brand.
Is Guillaume Galloy a childhood or work friend? Why did you decide to partner to combine luxury and eco-design?
We worked together for several years and became friends. We had different backgrounds. I left Louis Vuitton to become Director of Architecture at Céline, part of the LVMH group. Then, I founded the consulting firm MADnetwork. There, I did customer experience consulting for high-end and luxury brands. Guillaume went to Philips. He worked in lighting for almost ten years. I left my company and we started talking about our project again. We created our brand two years ago and launched our first collection in January 2020.
What does NOMA mean and why did you choose this name?
NOMA stands for Noble Materials. It's a contraction of these two words. Recycled materials are now considered the most noble. They should be valued and used by everyone. These materials are right on our doorstep, and we need to think about how to use them.
Can you describe your creative process and how you work?
We are like a publishing house, like conductors. We don't design or manufacture; we distribute our products and sell directly. For the creative process, we call on talented and fairly well-known designers. We give them a brief to explain what we want (types of furniture, use, constraints, and materials). After that, they are free to suggest whatever they want. We have an artistic direction role, following a coherent approach to create collections.
We also work with an expert eco-design consulting firm (Mu), which analyzes the designers' initial drawings. Once we have a final version, we conduct a product life cycle analysis. This will allow us to measure all the impacts our product will have on the environment. We then adapt the design to have the least possible impact on our planet. We collaborate with a manufacturer who will give us their technical opinion on the product. 80% of environmental impacts occur during the design process. The goal is to have the least possible impact.
How do you design furniture in a circular economy?
The term circular economy can be very broad. The goal is to be able to measure the impact of furniture, from the extraction of the raw material to the end of the product's life. We identify the stages in the product's life that have the greatest impact on the environment. We have integrated this notion of circular economy from the outset. However, in a circular economy, we must go as far as reusing the product. We do not control the complete end of life of our products because we do not recover them. However, we try to make our products easily disassemblable. This allows us to separate the materials and make our products recyclable. Hence eco-design.
Can you explain your environmental approach? And why did you choose to undertake this eco-design of furniture?
Guillaume and I had already developed these notions in our past lives. At Louis Vuitton, more than fifteen years ago, we were already conducting a life cycle analysis of the store concept. At that time, environmental issues were not at the center of debates in luxury houses.
Today, we can't produce a chair like before. For us, it was obvious that we couldn't continue like this. Moreover, when we studied the furniture market in the high-end and luxury segment, we realized that no one was working on these issues. We are the first in this market segment to offer a product where eco-responsibility is at the heart of the approach.
We place design and respect for the environment on the same level. We believe that beauty is a vector for change. We don't buy a table or an object simply because it's made from recycled materials, but first and foremost because we like it. If we want to change mentalities in the way we consume decoration, on our scale, we must offer beautiful objects. This combination of strong designs and responsible materials is important. The recycled material part really corresponds to the visible part of the iceberg.
We strive to manufacture in France and avoid using chemicals. We ensure that our products are disassembled so they can be repaired and recycled at the end of their life. Our website displays the product name and a number indicating the percentage of recycled materials it contains.
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And where are your material deposits located?
Not all of our sources come from France. We don't find all of our materials there. But we try to stay European as much as possible. For example, we can't find recycled screws or bolts. I did a lot of research on this. So we have to source differently. When selecting our materials from our materials library, we have several different filters that we apply to make a choice. This can, for example, involve the origin of the material. On the wool armchair, we use virgin wool. We don't use recycled fabric.
We wanted a natural and renewable product. However, we were only offered virgin wool from New Zealand. All the manufacturers say it's the best wool. We finally found sheep in France and found a fabric manufacturer who manufactures in France. We are very happy to work with them. To date, no customer has complained about the quality of our fabric. We must therefore evaluate the quality and durability of the material for furniture. We must also focus on aesthetics, price, and the possibility of transformation. We have several criteria. All our materials are analyzed to determine their impact.
Don't hesitate to consult our latest article: Ekhi Busquet
Interview by Clara Didier
Formatted by Coralie Mottu
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