There is a sure irony in the truth that MØM – quick for Matter of Thoughts – has spent nearly ten years constructing a inventive apply rooted in doing what no one else is doing. Nonetheless, inventive director and co-founder Willy Berquier explains how that was the entire level from the beginning.
“We based the company nearly 10 years in the past with my affiliate, Céline Aznar. On the time, the concept was easy: to not do what everybody else was doing,” he says. “That may sound cliché, or too good to be true — however actually, it was nothing greater than that.”
That mindset of intuition and insurrection was there lengthy earlier than MØM was even a reputation. For Willy, it’s about chasing the sort of concepts that do not essentially scream ‘innovation’ however really feel inevitable as soon as they exist.
“What I had felt deep inside since I used to be a baby turned out to be one thing others really referred to as a occupation. So I assumed, okay, let’s head in that route,” he remembers. “And the entire crew shared the identical intestine feeling.”
That very same feeling has outlined the company’s ethos ever since. Everybody on the studio believes in creativity, not for its personal sake, however for its energy to disclose one thing significant.
Credit score for all photographed pictures: Laurène Bouaziz
Creativity with conviction
If there is a thread that runs via every part MØM does – from branding and cultural tasks to movie and editorial work – it is the facility of concepts that really feel apparent after the very fact. “We’re fascinated by concepts that really feel so apparent as soon as they have been revealed – those everybody walked previous with out noticing – after which discovering probably the most highly effective and exquisite strategy to deliver them into the world,” says Willy.
Which means the company thrives on purchasers prepared to take dangers and worth substance over floor. “We’re not artists creating for ourselves,” he provides. “Our function is to hear, to grasp, and to channel creativity into readability, impression, and relevance.”
It is a philosophy that feels particularly important in a world saturated with noise. “The tasks that drive us are these the place daring decisions and significant intentions come collectively – whether or not in design, tradition, or past – to create one thing that may actually resonate.”
Staying unbiased – and staying awake
The most important problem of constructing an company like MØM, Willy says, hasn’t been inventive in any respect – it has been holding onto independence. “It is to withstand the decision of the sirens, notably within the occasions of disaster we have all been going via over the previous few years,” he explains. “The best wealth of creativity lies in independence. Little question about it.”
For MØM, independence is not only a enterprise determination. It is an engine that retains the crew bold and stressed. “It is each freedom that opens doorways and retains us awake, but additionally every day stress to do much better than others,” Willy says. “As a result of if we solely do exactly as effectively, it isn’t sufficient. We’ve to boost the bar greater with the intention to make a distinction, and to do it our personal manner.”
That ambition exhibits up not solely within the work MØM takes on, but additionally within the work it would not. “Generally, which means having the braveness to not settle for each undertaking, realizing when to say ‘No’ to our purchasers, recognising that there is nonetheless one other mile past what others name the additional mile,” says Willy. “As soon as once more, for a lot of this may sound like effort, however for us, it is a mindset.”
Agility as a superpower
That mindset was put to the check through the pandemic and have become one among MØM’s proudest chapters. “From the very first day of lockdown till the ‘finish’ of Covid, we by no means stopped delivering for our purchasers, even far more than in regular occasions,” Willy remembers. “We had been even taking pictures a TV industrial in Belgium, proper in the course of confinement, when contagion charges had been nonetheless excessive.”
It was a baptism of fireside for the company’s lean and versatile construction, constructed round a community of unbiased expertise around the globe. Ten years in the past, Willy says, that mannequin “felt like a dangerous wager” in France. “In the present day, it has turn into the norm, even a pattern.”
That adaptability – the power to remain small, nimble, and deeply engaged – has turn into a defining power. Willy sees it as a reminder of why independence was value preventing for. “Perhaps that is our largest spotlight as a crew: staying true to our path, it doesn’t matter what.”
Design as a driver of change
Past craft and cleverness, MØM is pushed by a deeper perception that creativity has a task to play in shaping tradition and shifting boundaries. The company’s undertaking Le CerCle, produced by Silvera, is an ideal instance. “We felt we had been serving to to construct bridges between two worlds: on one aspect, the posh design market – typically seen as untouchable and out of doors the standard codes – and on the opposite, bold but important ecological considering,” Willy explains.
“Le CerCle has a really clear message: cease going round in circles and transfer the round financial system ahead. It is from being ‘anti-design’. Fairly the other – it is precisely what design ought to be about in just a few years.”
The identical considering underpins In Talks, MØM’s collection of intimate conversations with a number of the world’s most celebrated designers. By means of hours of discussions with figures like Patricia Urquiola, Faye Toogood, Ron Arad, Tom Dixon and GamFratesi, Willy seen the identical sample rising.
He says: “Regardless of the origins, influences, private type, or strategies, the frequent thread is similar: how do I create one thing for others that I deeply imagine in, ranging from my very own inventiveness?
“Whether or not it is defending ladies’s voices, decreasing humanity’s impression on the planet, breaking free from one’s personal situation, or just bettering folks’s on a regular basis lives, everybody has their very own driving pressure. It is fascinating.”
A mindset constructed on curiosity
Spend any time with the MØM crew and you will shortly sense what fuels their creativity. “We’re fascinated by the concept of uncovering the sort of concepts everybody ought to have seen – these little tilts, these sparks that folks walked previous with out ever seeing or giving weight to,” Willy says. “The sort of concepts we might be jealous of if another person had noticed them first.”
That obsession with readability and ease shapes the work, but additionally the studio’s tradition. MØM thrives on uncommon pairings, sudden collaborations and a deep love of craft, language and music.
“From folks’s viewpoint, I believe that for those who ask them once we’re not within the room, they might say that we love craft, we love music, we love the fantastic thing about phrases, we love combining sudden issues or uncommon profiles,” Willy says. “That is a little bit of our signature. Not less than I hope so.”
At all times trying ahead
As for what’s subsequent, Willy and the crew aren’t slowing down. A brand new collaboration with Philippe Starck is on the horizon, alongside the launch of a branding and artwork route division devoted to artists, athletes and public figures. MØM’s worldwide work can be ramping up – a improvement the crew is “actually pleased with”.
Maybe most telling is Willy’s perspective to the long run, the place he sees a steadiness of ambition and openness. “At the same time as an everlasting curious thoughts, I might somewhat not know precisely what the long run holds,” he says. “What excites me most is solely the prospect to maintain exploring new issues.”
This spirit of exploration is what MØM was constructed on and it is what is going to preserve it evolving within the years to return. “Our objective is not to be glorious at one factor we already know learn how to do,” Willy says. “Our objective – and my job – is to excel at creating the fitting situations and connecting all of the dots in order that we might be good at issues we have by no means completed earlier than. And that is one of the best want I could make for us.”
