• OUR STORY

    LA PALETTE is a story of apples. And a story of people. It began in Berry, in the Cher area, in the heart of France. In Saint-Martin d’Auxigny, the centre of dessert apple cultivation, the Chardon family, like a hundred and fifty other families in the area, have been fruit growers for several generations.

    Fruit growing techniques have seen much change over the years. In the 1950s, standard apple trees gave way to half-standard apple trees, apple trees aligned like rows of vines that have proven much more rational to manage, maintain and care for.

    The orchards of Saint-Martin d’Auxigny retain this appearance today. During the picking season, in September and October, the apples are layered in big wooden crates, which, uniquely in this area, measure 560 x 373 mm.
    Once these crates are full of apples, they, too, are layered on a … palette (pallet).
     A pallet measures 1,120 x 1,120 mm; these dimensions are very specific to the town of

  • Saint-Martin d’Auxigny. 4 rows of 6 crates are stacked on each pallet, giving a total of 24 crates. The apples are then put into cold storage until they are sold.

    The moment of inspiration

    The transformation of a pallet from a raw object seemed obvious to Samuel Chardon, the son of retired fruit growers Émile and Christiane Chardon. One morning in the summer of 2003, while staying with his parents, he saw some pallets stacked in the “fruit warehouse” where the apples used to be stored. And visualising a new use for them, he asked his father to make him a coffee table from a pallet cut down to two-thirds its normal size.
    Émile Chardon thus created something of great originality. The pallet was cleaned, transformed, sanded and waxed. Four wooden legs were added to raise its height. Finally, a thick glass plate was placed, and fixed with attractive metal fittings, onto the wooden structure. And that was it. The original coffee table was born and it caused a sensation.

  • In 2005, Samuel met Vincent Borgne, a great traveller, in Auvergne. From then on, they would regularly bring up this vague project of a coffee table collection. Samuel told Vincent about the existence of the 1,120 x 1,120 mm pallets and how he saw them as the base of the project. What is more, Vincent, the son of Daniel and Michèle Borgne, was originally from Allouis. This town is in the Cher area, a few kilometres away, as chance would have it, from … Saint-Martin d’Auxigny and located at the foot of the TDF long-wave transmitter with the highest masts in Europe ... Daniel Borgne is an enthusiastic model maker. From a selection of sketches, he made the first ¼ scale model.
    This was a decisive moment for the future of the project as it allowed it to move towards a more concrete phase.

    Then something no less decisive happened. Samuel had a meeting at Daniel’s house. Over coffee, Michèle put the model down … upside down. For Samuel and for Vincent, this became its natural position. Daniel made a second model, which met

  • with approval and became the base of the definitive project.

    In 2007, 4 years after the creation of the “small” table, Samuel and Vincent decided to create an exceptional object and, this time, they wanted to use an entire pallet. And thus was born the idea of LA BRUTALE.

    They took inventory of all the pallets available in their raw form and decided that LA PALETTE’s first collection would be created in a limited edition series of 350 pieces.

    2009 arrived and Samuel and Vincent now wanted to move onto the actual construction of LA BRUTALE. But how would they go about it? This was a completely original approach that combined artistic creation with the manufacturing process.

    At this point, another meeting would bring decisive scope to the project. Samuel met David Carrara, a young cabinet maker and contemporary art fanatic with his own workshop. Samuel very quickly sensed

  • that David was the right person to bring the project to life. David’s reaction was enthusiastic. He, too, fell madly in love at first sight with LA BRUTALE. Inspired, he provided his vision, his technical expertise and his artistic sensibility.
    With their resolutely collaborative approach, David, Samuel and Vincent went back to square one, using the second model made, and began to thoroughly look at how to turn the object into reality by exploring all the details.
    The next goal was to make a prototype and a number zero. The top constitutes the central element of this and would, of course, be a pallet, although somewhat revisited. As for the base, following infinite discussions, it would be made from …

    > Read what happened next in CREATION

    Samuel Chardon and Vincent Borgne would like to thank :

    Brahim Bahassou, Philippe Bousseaud, Henri Brénot, Jean-Michel Brunet, Nathalie Brunet, Hélène Carrara, Thierry Chapuis, Alain Clavier, la "coach",

  • Sophie Di Palma, Stéphanie Dussart, les "jambes", "Jean-Claude", Jean-Claude Jouffre,Nicolas Legland, François Leprince, Véronique Moquet, Daniel Mourgues, Olivier Mourgues, Patrick Navarre, Laurent Scavone, Simon Taylor, Vanina Varlamoff