Born in France and raised in Switzerland, Sacha Walckhoff caught the design bug early on. “As far as I can remember, I needed to imagine a world I would like to live in,” he says. “First, I did my own clothes and now I am designing my own home. All this came out of a personal need.” After graduating from the Escuela de Artes y Técnicas de la Moda in Barcelona, Walckhoff moved to Paris to join the fashion house of Jean Remy Daumas in 1984, later working for Dorothée Bis, Michael Klein, Kenzō Takada, and then Christian Lacroix. Appointed creative director in 2010, a year after Lacroix left the company, Walckhoff built a home décor department. “I always thought there wasn’t much different between designing a dress or a chair,” he says.
Establishing the Lacroix house in distinct disciplines for various brands—tableware for Vista Alegre, furniture for Roche Bobois, carpeting for Moooi—Walckhoff created his first collection of porcelain vases in 2014, at the invitation of Galerie Gosserez in Paris. “I discovered this entire new world of design,” he says.
Walckhoff worked with German brand Pulpo on the Marelle rug, made up of four separate pieces that can be zipped together
His work with porcelain has continued with the unveiling of Magic Garden, a collection for Rosenthal, in early 2020 that he plans to expand with new pieces this year. “The concept was to have something of quality but for daily use,” he explains. “We all remember the cup in which we had our hot chocolate [growing up]. I had this memory in mind while designing this collection.” Walckhoff also has a new series of cases, boxes, and table centerpieces featuring sculpted, handpainted horses for Portuguese manufacturer Vista Alegre.
Over the next year at Christian Lacroix, Walckhoff will continue his work with Vista Alegre by designing family games made out of porcelain. In addition to a line based on the fashion house’s scarves archive for Designers Guild and Mantero, Walckhoff is also developing a series of sustainable fur rugs with Miksi, a wallpaper and rug collection with Yo2, and a range of coffee tables for Edition van Treeck. Despite wearing such diverse hats over a short time span, Walckhoff says his creative process is slow. “I like to have time, to be able to leave an idea behind and go back to it later to see if it’s still a good one,” he explains. “I want my ideas to stay.”
This article originally appeared in HD’s January 2021 issue.
