Philippe DAVID graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d’Art de Paris (ENSAAMA School of Art and Design-Olivier de Serres).
After 2 years at Studio Craft, one of the top fashion and home textile design firms of the 1980's, Thierry Mugler invited Philippe to join his team. Philippe created prints for the house's fashion collections, products for their Japanese licenses and designed Mugler's very first home textile collection for the American market.
In the late 1980's, Robin Robert of Clarence House invited Philippe to come work as guest artist with his creative director, Kazumi Yoshida. It provided him with an opportunity to hone his creative talents and deepen his knowledge of the American market.
In New York, Philippe also worked with furniture fabric editors including Martex, Donghia, Schumacher and Stark and in fashion with Kenneth Cole. He designed rugs for Saxony and Jamie Stern Designs.
For over 10 years, Philippe created furnishing fabrics for Fujie Textile Co.Tokyo, in close collaboration with the company's creative director, Yoko Engaku, choosing materials, fabric structures and weaves and developing colorways. He also took part in designing the firm's catalogues and visuals.
In 1997, Philippe decided to work from both Paris and New York.
In 2005, he launched Philippe DAVID SAS Textiles, a company dedicated to producing and commercializing his own fabric designs.
Philippe works with mills in France and Austria for prints, in India for embroidered fabrics and in Italy for jacquard weaves. He collaborates closely with the mills, personally following each crucial step of production in order to ensure that the finished fabrics are true to his design while taking full advantage of the mills' know-how and craftsmanship.
Biography
Photo by Céline Nieszawer
All of Philippe's designs reflect his passion for the natural world (plants and minerals, fibers, textures, colors, patterns …) and his free, poetic and subtle vision of the world around him, inspired and informed by years of travel, stays, exploration and discovery in places such as French Guiana, Brazil, Vietnam, Tanzania and Zanzibar, Madagascar, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Guatemala, Ecuador and the Galápagos, Chile and Easter Island, Argentina, Mexico, Japan and the American west.
Philippe has shown his gouaches in numerous galleries in the US and in France: Plum Blossoms (New York City), Neo Studio (Sag Harbor, New York), Jeffrey Lamb (Miami); Sergio Uranga's private showing space (Paris 2005), Galerie 6 Mandel (Paris 2008), Tétrel Déco (Paris 2009), Mise en Demeure (Paris 2015), Galerie Salon H in collaboration with multi-medium artist and ceramist Laurie Karp (Paris 2019) and at Véronique Rombout's tapestry workshop in Chatillon-Coligny (2021).
Philippe DAVID's fabric collections, drawings and paintings have been published in magazines such as Elle France and USA, Nest USA, Jardin/Passion France, AD France and USA, Le Journal du Textile France, Veranda USA, Avenue USA, House & Garden USA, House Beautiful USA, Vogue USA online, Women's Wear Daily USA, Southern Accent USA, Côté Sud France et Paper City USA. France 5 television devoted an episode of its Question Maison TV show to Philippe's collections.
From 1998 to 2022, Philippe David taught theme-based conferences and workshops at Parsons School of Design (NYC), Altos de Chavon (Santo Domingo) and the Louvre (Paris). He has been teaching at the Paris Fashion Institute (PFI) since 2009.
See the following websites and blogs for images of Philippe's collections:
www.6mandel.com(Tissus)
www.via.asso.fr (Agora des designers).
www.texstyledesign.com(Tapis)
Cooper-Hewitt Museum New-York(Dessin)
Creative DNA
The company is exclusively dedicated to producing my own designs.
My paintings, collages, photos and other multi-medium creations are the starting point for all of my fabric designs.
All of my fabrics are artist textiles.
My fabric designs, like my paintings, reflect the world in which I live.
I have spent years travelling the globe, discovering cityscapes and landscapes, exploring galleries and museums and meeting people - always open-eyed, always observing, taking it all in. That is what fuels my creation.
My vocabulary is one of large patterns, bright, bold colors and broad, generous strokes.
My themes center on Nature, landscapes, adventure, voyages and encounters.