This Retro-Futurist Furniture Line Was Dreamed Up By Daft Punk’s Creative Director
Get Lucky with cool custom furniture crafted by Daft Punk Creative Director Cédric Hervet and his cousin Nicolas.
The neck-swiveling pieces in Hervet Manufacturier’s evolving design collection look otherworldly, yet strangely reminiscent of something you’ve seen before— perhaps in deep reverie after binging a weekend worth of ’60s sci-fi flicks.
They’re almost interdimensional, as if somewhere in the apex of the mid-century modernist’s dream, civilization branched off into a different timeline, one where utopia was achieved. No wonder they dub their work The Art of Space.
This is the product of the Hervet cousins Cédric and Nicolas, who are from a generation raised on Japanese giant-robot cartoons, Star Trek, TRON video games, and Barbarella—all tied together by a futuristic vision filtered through a nostalgic lens.
“We have the same cultural references as we grew up together,” explains Cédric, who is best known as the Creative Director of Daft Punk, one of the most influential musical artists of the past 25 years. “It gave us a strong connection and chemistry about our taste and aesthetics.”
Together Cédric and Nicolas design the retro-futurist pieces, then Nicolas takes the sketches, 3D modeling and materials strategy to his family’s fourth-generation atelier in Normandy, France where the objets d’art are painstakingly constructed by hand.
All either made-to-order, or exclusive to strictly a dozen units for the furniture pieces, numbered and signed; and 100 units for decorative objects like skateboards and champagne buckets. It’s no surprise their client roster reads like an A-list afterparty manifesto.
Take their stunning Président desk with full grain leather-lined drawers, solid stainless-steel handles, and a variety of optional wood veneers—including Limba sourced from Côte D’Ivoire, Indonesian Macassar Ebony, Australian Eucalyptus and European Olive Tree. “All our workers are graduated in cabinetmaking, marquetry and sculpture,” Nicolas notes.
As Daft Punk’s creative director, Cédric, together with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, has shaped the twin robots’ iconic imagery and visual strategy, co-writing their experimental film Electroma, co-directing music videos, designing most of their cover art, and co-producing their third album Human After All.
Since their first American show at über-hip Maxfield’s in Beverly Hills in 2018, the cousins have developed a slew of new pieces including the Starsky table, the stainless steel and leather Actarus, the Capitaine and Capitaine II rocking chairs, and Platinium foosball table, as well as smaller art pieces, jewelry boxes and the like. Currently Hervet is launching a new piece about every three months.
So be sure to visit their stylish Paris gallery at 8 rue de Volney, between Place Vendôme and Opéra, if you want to score one before it sells out faster than a Daft Punk Coachella Reunion performance.
Read This Next
