Philippe Nigro’s Phileas collection, both challenges and delights: achieving cutting edge modernity, imbuing the design with real personality and a strong, original, visual identity while at the same time awakening a nostalgia which anchors it history. Its vertical quilting recalls the upholstery of 1950s automobile seats, banquettes from the mythical Orient Express, the hushed surroundings of English gentlemen’s clubs, the novels of Agatha Christie and Jules Verne, even the balloons of the Montgolfier brothers: inviting one on an aesthetic journey through time.