Coqui Coqui is famous for its niche luxury perfumes. The products that this family-owned company creates work on the senses and transport you to tropical corners of the world. A limited edition range of items from Coqui Coqui will be available to buy only online at hm.com from 8 August. It is a collection that will allow you to decorate your home and fill your interior with unique fragrances. What has the Coqui Coqui team prepared? We had the opportunity to speak to the creators of the brand.
With this latest collaboration, H&M HOME provides the opportunity to join the magical world of Coqui Coqui. By being part of it, we can celebrate the lifestyle threaded through the brand’s DNA. The luxury they offer is not about material wealth, but about being able to connect with nature and objects created using artisanal techniques from long ago. Coqui Coqui founders Nicolas Malleville and Francesca Bonato met in the early 2000s on the sandy beaches of Tulum. Nature accompanied them from the very beginning. Today, they divide their time between the Yucatan in Mexico, the island of Bora Bora in French Polynesia, and the Riviera dei Fiori in France and Italy. If one were to pinpoint the roots of the company they founded, one would have to think of these corners of the world.
From the very beginning, Coqui Coqui has been driven by the idea of discovering beauty. The company’s history began inconspicuously. The founders’ residence in Malleville-Bonato in the Yucatan began to be visited by friends and family. It soon became apparent that one guest room was not enough to accommodate everyone. The couple loves to invite guests and show them the beauty of the peninsula and the local culture. Today, Coqui Coqui runs five exclusive residences, four in Mexico and one in French Polynesia.
Together with H&M HOME, Malleville and Bonato have created a collection with interior accessories. Unique home fragrances developed especially for the collection will soon be available for purchase: Vétyvers du Pacifique and Flores de Yucatán. Aromas will also be available to enjoy with candles and scented sticks. There will also be practical items such as cushions, a multifunctional blanket, beach towels, a decorative amphora, a porcelain tea set or a teapot with mugs in gold with a distinctive palm tree motif. A kimono-style bathrobe to take on the go completes the collection. However, there are more unique items! You will be able to discover them all on the launch day on 8 August.
What does the collaboration with H&M HOME mean for Nicolas Malleville and Francesca Bonato? We had the opportunity to speak to the creative duo.
We created this collection thinking about the things we consider essential in our daily lives – the items we need to create a ‘home away from home’ wherever we are. With this collection, we can invite others to explore the faraway places that have become part of our lives.
Your brand’s products work on the senses. How do fragrances affect how we feel at home?
From the very beginning, Nicolas linked the Coqui Coqui concept to scents, because of their ability to be memorable. Smell is probably the strongest of the senses, it can remind us of a place, a person, a particular moment… Our smells are created from places with distinctive plants, naturally occurring in the area. At Ilse de Société in Bora Bora, our home is filled with the scent of the surrounding coconut trees, tiare flowers, local fruit trees and vetiver growing next to the house. Thanks to our partnership with H&M HOME, we can share a similar experience with others.
What inspirations influenced the fragrances Flores de Yucatán and Vétyvers du Pacifique?
We developed the fragrance base in Grasse, a French town known as the capital of perfume. Our inspiration always comes from the plants, the landscape, the local culture. Flores de Yucatán and Vétyvers du Pacifique will allow others to immerse themselves in the beauty of these places, to feel the spirit of Yucatán and French Polynesia.
Suggestions on how best to use the items in the collection?
We designed the collection to be versatile, to work in many situations. The fabrics can be used to wrap your shoulders when travelling, used as a picnic blanket, tablecloth or bedspread. All the textiles are made from natural materials such as linen, cotton and plant fibres. The fabrics are decorated with botanical motifs depicting fruit, flowers, herbs and roots. In this way, we have presented the components of a fragrant collection. The cushions, on the other hand, pay homage to the traditional Yucatan method of hammock weaving, which has been used in the region for generations.
H&M HOME often offers limited series of products from exceptional brands. Evelina Kravaev-Söderberg, Head of Design H&M HOME,told us about such collaborations .
Many talented designers work for H&M HOME. Despite this, you often choose to collaborate with other brands. Why?
It’s true, we have a fantastic design team, but it’s always good to surprise our customers, to challenge ourselves by collaborating with others. We want to offer unique, inspiring and well-crafted collections for interiors. We democratise great design and collaborating with different brands allows us to share their aesthetic with more people. For many of our customers, such items can be a novelty, we make available collections they couldn’t get anywhere else at an affordable price.
What makes you invite a particular brand to collaborate with you? Why did you decide on Coqui Coqui this time?
More often than not, it is an instinctive decision. In the case of Coqui Coqui, it was also influenced by my personal experience. I first met the founders of the brand twelve years ago when I went on holiday with my husband to one of their properties in Mexico. I bought some beautiful fragrances there and took them home. To this day, when I spray these scents in my linen cupboard, I am transported back in time, bringing back memories of wonderful holidays. Over the years, I also visited other Coqui Coqui properties and met the founders – Francesca Bonato and her husband Nicolas Malleville and their family. During a casual conversation, they suggested that they might be a good partner for H&M HOME. I thought: “Of course!”. And so we started a collaboration. It is very special to me, especially because they are both amazing people, they are very open, full of happiness and now they can share themselves with the world.
In total, there are 26 objects in the new collection created in collaboration with Coqui Coqui. How do they complement the range available at H&M HOME?
Not every H&M HOME project has a Swedish aesthetic. Of course we are a Swedish company, our design team is based in Stockholm, so there are common values to our collections. Despite appearances, the Coqui Coqui aesthetic has a lot in common with Scandinavian design. This includes simplicity, authenticity, a kind of rawness. In Sweden, we appreciate the beauty of nature, which is so important to Coqui Coqui, where everything they work on is based on local craftsmanship. The design principles of each piece in this collection also match our values of versatility and quality, each piece has been carefully considered and designed to be used in many different ways.
Rogers. So which pieces of the limited edition collection do you like best?
I already have a shopping list! I love the bedspread and the matching fringed cushion, which I will definitely buy. I love the kimono dressing gown, it’s beautiful and the quality is amazing. The dressing gown is sewn from ramie, the more often you wear such a fabric, this one becomes even nicer to the touch.
The Coqui Coqui x H&M HOME collection will be available at hm.com/home from 8 August.
source: press materials, editorial
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