Patrick Jouin has a special talent for altering the landscape of the human experience – from our view of Paris atop the Eiffel Tower to our dream state at night. He brings his unique aesthetic and underlying stories to fields as diverse as dining, commuting, shopping, sleeping, and has even challenged how products are created. Now, Jouin redefines our understanding of relaxing and working by fashioning imaginative landscapes with the elements of his new sofa system Item for Bernhardt Design.

The genesis of Item was not the result of a complex design brief, but rather Jouin’s fascination with language and the creation of music. “When you create several elements, as with letters or musical notes, there is the possibility to create an entire language, an entire symphony,” states Jouin. He continues, “I didn’t want clients to be limited to one standard sofa with a predetermined form, but to give them the opportunity to invent the shape that is right for them, for their lives, for their spaces. The idea was to present infinite possibilities based on a few simple elements.”