MILAN — “I’m always exploring and adapting like water in a river. Maybe this fluidity resonates with people,” designer Harry Nuriev told WWD on the eve of the opening of his latest exhibit at Maison&Objet in Paris.
Nuriev, Maison&Objet’s Designer of the Year 2026, is preparing to unveil a new iteration of Transformism, his creative manifesto. An immersive exhibit will debut within the Paris Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre on Thursday and will bring a forgotten past to life — this time told in Nuriev’s signature contemporary language.
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Nuriev, the creative behind Crosby Studios, which has sealed design projects for such varied brands as Jimmy Choo, Nike, Valentino, Baccarat, Augustinus Bader and Dover Street Market, said he’s also in the process of planning something the design world has never seen.
“We’re planning a festival that combines design, dance and other art forms — it’ll include lectures, design competitions, and events that unite street culture, pop culture and design. It’s a way to open the conversation to a bigger audience and make design more accessible,” he told WWD. The event will unfold in tandem with NYCxDesign week, running May 14 to 20.
The designer just wrapped up Design Miami in December with two design-forward projects: a silvery, supersized installation at the Jimmy Choo Design District boutique for Miami Art Week and “Perfume Transformism” with U.K.-based Clive Christian Perfume for a monochromatic space that invited visitors to imagine scents in physical form. When pondering future design and art events, he contends that traditional formats are limiting for some, adding that it’s time to push the envelope on how collectible design is shared with the world.
“After years at trade shows around the globe, it feels like they’ve become overly professionalized, catering only to niche audiences,” he said.
The festival format, he said, is a way to engage and welcome the community around the Crosby Studio ethos. “Right now, the festival concept is our focus. It’s a continuation of our journey, combining accessibility, design and culture. We aim to create meaningful, interactive experiences for everyone.”
Nuriev, 41, was born in Russia amid the faded decadence of the czarist era and the rational architecture of communism. This juxtaposition, he said, could have impacted his idea of Transformism. At Maison&Objet, this concept will unfold as a collection of chrome-colored objects, pieces of furniture and mementos from the past that come alive once again in a new light.
An Unconventional Start
Nuriev first garnered media attention with the redesign of his own modest apartment. In 2017, after moving to New York City from Moscow and while he was still relatively unknown, The New York Times got wind of his pre-war Williamsburg one-bedroom flat, in which Nuriev made his own signature designs come to life on a shoestring budget. “I was shocked because it was a sort of… a vivid, very abstract concept that I didn’t dream about. It just happened.”
According to The New York Times, standout pieces were a modular bookshelf that resembled an Italian Fascist building, with spinning components inspired by a lazy Susan, and a chair inspired by American artist Donald Judd’s cubes, both of which Nuriev made from rose-gold stainless steel.
“I convinced my landlord to let me perform a facelift on the place. And instead of making something comfortable… I made a bold, crazy, artistic space, and I think that was my turning point moment,” he laughed, recognizing his reputation later skyrocketed, culminating in being dubbed Instagram’s Artist of the Year, 2018.
In and Around Paris
The aesthete, who has a knack for transforming forgotten items into collectors’ pieces, moved to Paris and established Crosby Studios on 8 rue des Beaux Arts. In 2023, he received the stamp of approval from Mobilier National, the French national furniture institution that has been supporting arts and crafts since the 17th century. Nuriev collaborated with the organization for a project that incorporated artificial intelligence that breathed new life into 17th-century Royal House tapestries.
“Each project is important to me, and I move quickly to new challenges, transforming and evolving constantly,” he reminisced.
At Maison&Objet, the theme “Past Reveals Future” will be explored by designers around the world and speaks directly to Nuriev’s Transformism philosophy.
“Transformism has nothing to do with recycling. It’s the belief that every shape was already explored in terms of color and philosophy… so instead of trying to introduce something new to the world, we are trying to give life and repurpose things that have already been great,” he explained.
Nuriev’s immersive installation will feature old and new objects, many of which are antiques alight in chrome in a modern era. It’s an extension of recent exhibitions like “Lèche-vitrines” which debuted at the Louvre in 2025 and which reimagined traditional shop window displays, incorporating used objects to reflect on consumer society. Another exhibit, “Objets Trouvés” for Art Basel Paris 2025, transformed a Parisian chapel into a poetic marketplace of discarded objects.
Harry Nuriev x Baccarat
On Wednesday evening at Crosby Studio’s rue des Beaux-Arts location, Nuriev presented his latest collaboration with Baccarat, which involved reinterpreting their centuries-old glassmaking mastery with new codes and across several of its spaces.
Nuriev said he imagined a dystopian, crystal-less world 50 years in the future, when missing elements of an inherited chandelier might have to be replaced with Bic pens, bottle caps, plastic animal figures and keychains.
His interpretation of Baccarat’s Zenith chandelier is to be sold as a one-off art piece, complete with its scaffolding crate decorated with old keyboards, sunglasses and badminton rackets.
In a side project, Nuriev customized Harcourt glasses and a carafe with engraved and enameled graffiti, giving a subversive edge to familiar luxury vessels.
“I think we live in a world of data, and I would rather work with this existing collection, rather than try to introduce something new to this world,” he told WWD, noting his graffiti draws on diagrams and manual descriptions in the Baccarat archive.
“And this is one of my favorite pieces, it’s a crystal ball,” he said, pausing in front of the mysterious object, which will be sold in a limited edition of eight.