First and foremost,
I am a woman.
French.
Parisian.
I live on the water.

From an early age, I was surrounded by beauty.
I grew up in a large apartment within a 17th-century hôtel particulier in Paris’s Left Bank.
A place that felt almost dreamlike, with an inner courtyard, once meant for carriages and horses.

I was surrounded by molded wood paneling, sculpted cornices and overmantel fireplaces lined with antique mirrors, softly worn by time. Tall windows with deep embrasures. Wooden shutters with peeling paint.

An eroded décor from another era, where I wandered from room to room beneath endless ceilings, accompanied by the scent of wax and the creaking of Versailles parquet floors.

Later, at the Camondo School, I learned to decode the rules of classicism and to reinterpret them into a personal language—fertile and creative.

Even today, my work draws on this classical vocabulary—this French heritage—not as a quotation, but as a living structure. A way of holding a line, constructing balanced proportions and inscribing forms within a pursuit of elegance, with a particular attention to detail.

Then the framework begins to shift.
Classicism transforms, loosens, reinterprets itself within the present.
It becomes a field for experimentation.

Gradually, the lines begin to loosen.
The drawing opens up, freer, yet still precise.
More instinctive, while remaining controlled.

It was during this moment of transition that I designed the Écume collection. I was searching for a line that could feel both spontaneous and exact. A single continuous curve shaping the silhouette of a sofa, as though drawn in one gesture by hand.

A sinuous line that envelops and reassures, like a protective form.

I drew inspiration from a landscape of dunes along the coast of northern Brazil, a remote fishing village where I have spent my summers with my family for the past ten years.

Each year, this immersion in a dense and untamed nature offers me a sense of freedom, far removed from the Parisian microcosm. It shifts me away from the cerebral and toward something more instinctive, more sensory.
Brazil inspires me. It stays with me.

Later, while working on projects in Japan, I came to understand one of the principles of Zen Buddhism: emptiness as an active space, through the concept of Mu.

A process of subtraction.
A search for simplicity.
Moving toward less.
Allowing space to breathe.

After this period of formal exploration, I found myself drawn more closely to material itself — a new dimension of the work, opening another field of experimentation.

Material no longer simply accompanies form.
It puts it under tension, transforms it, until it becomes a driving force, a shift toward a more contemporary language.

In certain pieces of the collection, material reveals unexpected states.
In the Atome series, chemistry begins to operate: tensions, cracks, oxidations emerge, as though the material were continuing its own movement.

The creative process is ultimately a solitary one.
No one can initiate an idea in your place.
Inspiration must come from within — from lived experience, from visual and cultural references absorbed over time.

At the same time, developing a collection of exceptional furniture belongs to a broader process, one rooted in collaboration.

The designer becomes part of a living ecosystem of gestures, hands and craftsmanship where artisans, workshops and makers all converge around the birth and life of a piece.

Time spent in workshops is essential.
Observing, exchanging, understanding — staying close to those who make.

Furniture is never neutral.
It embodies an attitude, almost a way of being, carrying within it both the spirit that conceived it and the hands that shaped it.

Pieces coexist, interact and weave essential connections.
Some structure, others move, others accompany.

Over time, they begin to form a whole — not simply a collection, but a true family.

The objects I design relate to one another, brush against each other, sometimes even seem to converse. They evolve together, carried by a shared movement that time continues to extend — pieces meant to live on, to be collected, and ultimately passed down.

In 2015, Charlotte founded her own studio, followed six years later by the launch of her first furniture collection. Her design approach is grounded in an ongoing dialogue between the heritage of the past and the contemporaneity of the present. She explores forms and materials with great freedom, seeking to extract the essence of classicism in order to reinterpret it through a modern lens. Her work strikes a balance between rigor and expressiveness, between feminine and masculine, deliberately avoiding rigidity and monotony.

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In contrast to the cold, impersonal conventions of the traditional showroom, Courcelles is conceived as a private apartment — a fully lived-in space. Designed as an intimate environment, it invites relaxation, conversation, and exchange. Here, Charlotte presents a thoughtful and refined artistic curation, creating synergies between ideas, personalities, and works. For her, creation is a form of play: a constant pursuit of harmony between lightness and emotional depth.

Today, her work is showcased within internationally renowned galleries, including The Invisible Collection in London and Studio Twenty Seven in New York, affirming the international reach of her practice and the distinctiveness of her formal language.

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Over the years, Charlotte has built a close-knit community of partners, artisans, and artists. These deep and lasting human connections remain a vital source of inspiration, joy, and shared creativity, continually nourishing her artistic vision.