21 February 2025 | NEWS
Elite Design Award 2025 : Arts and Crafts
Elite Design Awards 2025
The 2025 Elite Design Awards winners are four women: Weronika Poręba from Poland (first prize), Clothilde Verdim from France (second prize) and British designer partners Rachel Forster and Ella Doran (third prize). Hailing from Mrocza, Paris and London respectively, the winners have come up with three outstanding bed designs, each offering their own take on this year’s theme of Arts and Crafts, a style that emerged in the nineteenth century seeking to honour craftsmanship rather than industrialisation.
For the eighth time, Elite sent out a call for projects from designers the world over as way of spotting the stylists of the future and identifying new ideas and concepts for beds. A jury consisting of design professionals chose the most outstanding bed designs from a total of 90 projects; the winning and runner-up designs will be produced in Aubonne, Vaud.
1st prize Weronika Poręba
The first prize goes to Weronika Poręba for her ANDE bed – a contemporary, minimalist project that’s an invitation to slow living, with pride of place given to noble materials such as walnut wood and a luxurious woollen bouclé fabric. The jury loved its practical, everyday aspects as well as its timeless, luxurious appeal, with a curved headboard and built-in bedside tables. The bed’s subtle proportions of wood and upholstery make it a perfect addition to Elite’s high-end artisanal universe. Featuring a very contemporary low base, ANDE is a haven of peace whose comfort can be gauged simply by how thick the mattress is!
2nd prize Clothilde Verdim
Our second prize goes to MAY, a floral bed redolent with the promise of springtime. Emerging Parisian stylist Clothilde Verdim offers her own interpretation of the theme featuring a stylish, ornamental headboard with a certain Art Deco touch. The restrained yet striking headboard unfurls like buds in spring, with the accompanying piping standing out like veins on a leaf – a delicate trimming detail embodying “the vitality instilled into the work by the upholsterer’s expert hand”. The overlaid bed base fades into the background – seen by the jury as a judicious design choice, as were the colour schemes available for this bed with a real upholsterer’s touch.
3rd prize Rachel Forster et Ella Doran
The A ROOM WITHIN A ROOM project from experienced British designer duo Rachel Forster and Ella Doran was placed third by the jury, who noted the four-poster bed’swell-balanced proportions and its many clever functionalities, such as the hanging light fitting and bedside tables built into the headboard. The two London-based designers envisaged the bed being made from English oak; it features openings covered with plant fibre weave providing comfortable padded support for the head. Assembled using mortise and tenon joints throughout, this entry showcases top-of-the-range cabinetmaking – with the result that in spite of its size, the bed can be dismantled and moved. The jury also praised this unusual bed’s slim, elegant styling.
In our jubilee year, Elite is once again reasserting its ability to design and produce beds – entirely hand-made near Lake Geneva, thanks to the unique and longstanding expertise of our artisans.
