Matter and Shape: why everyone in design is talking about it

In two years, Matter and Shape went from a first edition nobody had seen to the design event people clear their fashion-week schedule for. That kind of rise is rare, and it isn't an accident. Here's what the show is, the numbers behind the noise, and why a design or craft brand should care.

What Matter and Shape is

Matter and Shape is a design salon run by WSN, the group behind Who's Next and Première Classe (Matter and Shape). It launched as a physical event in March 2024, in the Jardin des Tuileries, during Paris Fashion Week, and it's the first show of its kind to put design and fashion in the same gardens at the same time.

It takes a transversal view of design: object and industrial design, interior design, fashion and the decorative arts, under one roof. The salon runs once a year, in March. Its third edition took place 6 to 9 March 2026, across 5,000 square metres and two pavilions in the Tuileries, with more than 70 exhibitors, plus communal areas, a design bookshop and boutique, a restaurant and a café (Wallpaper, Galerie).

The numbers behind the hype

The growth from the first edition to the second tells the story better than any adjective:

• Visitors: 8,000 to 13,000 in one year, a 65.8% jump.
• Exhibitors: 32 to 61. Countries represented: 15 to 25.
• Tents: 1 to 2, with visitors coming from more than 80 countries.
• First-timers: 52% of the 2025 audience were discovering the show, so it's still pulling new people in fast.
• Partners: 12 to 26, and media partners 14 to 22, as the industry lined up behind it.

The press caught up just as quickly. Matter and Shape drew 350 journalists, and its earned media value more than doubled in a year, from 1 million to 2.6 million, a 130% jump on the first edition. Coverage ran across the Financial Times, GQ, Elle Decor, Le Figaro, Vogue, Wallpaper and Dezeen. On Instagram it sits at 60,000 followers and a million impressions. The buzz is real, and it's measured.

Why everyone's talking about it

A few things separate Matter and Shape from a standard design fair.

The people behind it. It's directed by Matthieu Pinet, who built the Matter and Shape platform in 2013 before WSN turned it into a physical show. Its creative director is Dan Thawley, the editor known for a decade leading A Magazine Curated By, who writes for Vogue, Wallpaper and the Wall Street Journal and consults for Chanel, Dior, Gucci and Hermès. The set design for the first two editions came from Willo Perron, whose studio has shaped everything from Cartier campaigns to Rihanna's Super Bowl show. That's a serious team, and it shows in the room.

The fashion-and-design crossover. Because it runs during Paris Fashion Week, in the Tuileries, alongside Première Classe, it catches an audience no pure design fair can. Architects and gallerists mix with fashion buyers and luxury houses in the same aisles. Creative director Dan Thawley sums up the moment: design has become increasingly fashionable, and the show breaks the boundary between fashion and design during fashion week (Dezeen). Reviewers have noticed how it drops the corporate branding and wall text, so it reads more like a salon than a trade fair (Wallpaper).

The experience. Matter and Shape is built to be lived in for a day, not walked through in an hour. More on that below.

Who shows, and who buys

The exhibitor list reads like a design syllabus: Vitra, Flos, Alessi, cc-tapis, BD Barcelona, Frama, Tolix and Ton, alongside fashion-world names crossing into objects, Rick Owens, Byredo, Charlotte Chesnais, sacai with Astier de Villatte, and collaborations like Lobmeyr with Formafantasma.

The buyers are the part that matters for a brand. Matter and Shape draws top buyers from international department stores and concept stores: Le Bon Marché, Printemps, Galeries Lafayette, La Samaritaine, Liberty London, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, Merci, The Webster, 10 Corso Como Seoul, SSENSE, Net-a-Porter and Rinascente. Add the fashion and luxury houses who come to look, Chanel, Dior, Hermès, Saint Laurent, Loewe, Jacquemus, Bottega Veneta, and you have a room with real spending power and real taste.

Inside the 2026 edition

The third edition, in March 2026, built its programme around the idea of scale: proportion, and the relationships between objects, bodies, architecture and time (Galerie). The exhibitor list showed how far the show now reaches. Ann Demeulemeester, Marimekko, Georg Jensen, Mutina, Petite Friture and Frama, architecture names like Herzog & de Meuron, and collaborations including Ann Demeulemeester with Serax, Byredo with Iittala, and Lobmeyr with the filmmaker Luca Guadagnino (Wallpaper).

The year before set the tone. The 2025 edition marked the centenary of the 1925 Paris exhibition that gave Art Deco its name, with mirrored stands and a salon feel that design press singled out (Dezeen). Two editions in, the show already has a clear identity, and the press to match.

More than a salon

The reason people stay all day is the programme around the stands. Each edition runs a curated restaurant with sold-out sittings, the Jil Sander Design Talks recorded as podcasts, a Zara Home and Dreamin' Man café, film sessions, and bespoke events like a Harper's Bazaar breakfast. There's even an after-hours party in the city.

It also travels. Through its “Hors les Murs” programme, Matter and Shape stages activations beyond the salon: a pop-up at Galeries Lafayette, appearances during Milan's design week, Copenhagen's 3 Days of Design, and the Design Parade in Hyères. The show works the whole year, not just four days (Matter and Shape).

Why it matters for Indian design and craft brands

This is where it gets interesting for the brands we work with. India's strength isn't only fashion. It's objects, furniture, decorative arts, metalwork, weaving, ceramics, the handcraft that collectible design buyers are hunting for right now.

Matter and Shape is built for exactly that kind of work, and it puts it in front of buyers and galleries who pay for craft and a point of view. For an Indian design studio or a craft-led object brand with global ambition, there are few rooms this concentrated anywhere in the world. The fashion crossover is a bonus: a brand that sits between fashion and design has two audiences here, not one.

Picture a Jaipur studio doing hand-carved marble objects, or a Kerala maker working in brass and reclaimed wood. On a generic gift fair, that work competes on price. At Matter and Shape, the hand and the material are the whole point, and the buyer in front of you came looking for it. The same object lands very differently in the right room.

What a stand here can do

A stand at Matter and Shape works on three levels at once.

Orders and accounts. The department-store and concept-store buyers who walk it place real orders and open accounts that can run for years.

Press. With 350 journalists on site and earned media value of 2.6 million, a well-designed stand can earn coverage in titles like Elle Decor, AD and Wallpaper that's hard to buy at any price.

Positioning. Being selected for a show this tight, a few metres from Vitra and Flos, tells the market where your brand sits. That signal travels, and it follows you into every conversation after.

How to exhibit

Matter and Shape is a selection, like the best WSN shows. You don't buy a stand off a list. You apply with a project.

Booth sizes run from a 4 square metre open shared space for a single object up to 32 square metres for a full salon display, with 8, 12, 15, 18 and 24 square metre options in between. There's also a consulting service for artistic direction, curation and set design if you want help making the stand land.

The application is refreshingly simple: a short presentation of the project you'd show, a brief idea of how you'd present it, a sketch if you have one. A selection committee reviews it and comes back to you. We handle that process for you as part of the WSN family of shows we represent (apply here), and we'll tell you honestly whether your work fits the curation before you commit.

If you're weighing your options across Paris Fashion Week, read this next to our pieces on Première Classe, which shares the Tuileries with Matter and Shape, and Who's Next.

Matter and Shape is the fastest-rising design show in Paris, and it's still early. For a design or craft brand with a real point of view, getting in now means growing with it. The show returns to the Tuileries in spring 2027, so now is the time to prepare a project.

Send us your project and we'll give you a straight read on fit, then handle the application. Start here, or book a 30-minute call.