Threading Dreams: Meet The Hotel Industry’s Favourite Textile Artist

French artist Manon Daviet’s work transforms traditional textile art into imaginative, multi-dimensional narratives that celebrate nature in all its splendour. Those lucky enough to take a trip to the Grand Hotel Belvedere, deep in the Bernese Oberland, in Switzerland, might recognise her designs: a series of exclusive commissions featuring the fauna, flora and iconography of the region – think dairy cows, mountain peaks and cheese wheels – hangs on the iconic Wengen hotel’s chalet walls. Daviet has also created pieces for hotel Lilou, in the Côte d’Azur, and exhibited artworks at The Hoxton, Paris.

Known for her innovative approach to tufting, knitting and embroidery, the Paris-based artist, who grew up in the mountains of France’s Haute-Savoie region, creates tapestries alive with a playful, dreamlike sensibility. Her vibrant creations, whether inspired by the serene peaks of the Swiss Alps or the intricate beauty of forest moss beds, honour the power and mystery of the natural world. Here, she speaks to SUITCASE about her creative rituals, the landscapes that shaped her, and the meditative joy of bringing her fantastical visions to life.

Manon Daviet

How would you describe your art?

I often define myself as a textile painter. The different techniques I use, such as tufting, knitting, crochet and embroidery, are designed to make my drawings more lively and immersive. Textural and relief effects support the different planes of my compositions, which are often frontal, naive and synthetic in form. Colour also plays an important role in my paintings. Depending on the theme, I like to create either a peaceful, dreamlike atmosphere using monochromatic hues or, on the contrary, play on strong contrasts to generate a sensation of intensity and light.

As for the themes that define my work, I often find it hard to choose just one. Still lifes, everyday scenes and realistic landscapes inspire me just as much as surrealistic settings or creatures. It also happens that fantasy subjects are mixed with the real thing; I don’t impose any rules on myself. The common theme that runs through all my work is that of nature, and the emotions of power, beauty, mystery and spirituality that emanate from it.

We first came across your work at Grand Hotel Belvedere. Talk us through the tapestries you created for the property, and the inspiration behind them.

The brief was to evoke what the Swiss mountains represent in the collective imagination. I had to create nine visuals that would each give rise to 10 tapestries to decorate the hotel’s 90 rooms. I drew inspiration from my memories of my native Haute-Savoie, very close to the Swiss border, and from the popular paintings on wood found in mountain huts and chalets. These paintings, known as “poyas”, were historically painted by shepherds returning to the valleys for the winter. By taking up this pictorial style, with its often naive strokes and cheerful hues, I wanted to honour the elements – animals, vegetation, chalets, local produce – that shape the mountain landscapes I love so much.

Daviet beside an in-progress artwork, left, and the complete “La Souche”

Are there any particular places that inspire your work?

When it comes to textures, there isn’t really one particular place or landscape that inspires me more than others. I just try to approximate sensations that you might experience in the real world. For example, I often use the knotted-stitch technique to represent the grass in the foreground. This technique, which involves the juxtaposition of a multitude of knots, allows me great freedom in the gradations and length of my wool strands. The result is one of volume and movement.

Another example would be in the choice of wools. To represent the bark of a tree, I’d tend to select a wool that’s felted and rough, to convey the rough aspect of the wood. The colours I choose depend on the subject I’m tackling in the tapestry and the atmosphere I want to create. All sorts of memories feed my chromatic imagination: the palette of shades of blue when night falls, the sometimes purplish hue of a tree’s shadow on the ground, the multiple gradations and contrasting greens of a moss bed…

You grew up around mountains, in Haute-Savoie...

Until I was 18, I lived near Annecy, in a very privileged natural setting, surrounded by mountains and forests. As a child, having never lived anywhere else, I was unaware of the beauty and power of the landscapes I was lucky enough to have as my playground. At the time, I only dreamed of Paris, thinking that all the exciting things were happening there. It wasn’t until I arrived in Paris and started creating my tapestries that I realised the landscapes of my childhood had left their mark on my imagination. Beyond the aesthetic aspect, these mountain landscapes are my roots. As landmarks of stability, they symbolise a heritage of which I am very proud.

Where is home now?

I’ve been living in Paris for over 10 years. After working in my apartment for six years, I moved my studio to the Paris suburb of Fontenay-sous-Bois. It’s a place that brings together around 15 artists from different disciplines, including painting, ceramics and photography. I really miss the Haute-Savoie, but for the time being, my life and my job keep me in Paris.

“Les Maïs”, left, and “Les Vers Luisants”, right, by Daviet

What’s your favourite thing to do in the neighbourhood where you live?

I’ve been enjoying going to the Bastille market on Sunday mornings with friends. I love the warm, lively atmosphere, all the colours and shapes on the stalls and the background noise of shopkeepers trying to lure customers. I’m also very lucky, as I’m located in an area where brocantes and art galleries are plentiful. I don’t think I’m very original... I’m one of those people who find routine reassuring. I like having my own café, my own bar, my own grocery store... These little habits make me feel at home, in a village within the city.

Which do you prefer – city or countryside?

It’s complicated. Despite the passing years, the beauty and cultural richness of this city continue to amaze me. Paris is a city that never sleeps and that you never finish discovering. But one of the great frustrations I have with this city is the lack of nature and distant perspective. I spent lockdown in Haute-Savoie and was struck by the arrival of spring for the first time in a very long time. I was quite surprised to see how quickly leaves, grasses and flowers covered the ground and the sleeping trees. So, despite my love of Paris, the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in recent years is the change of seasons in the countryside.

Walk us through your creative process, from idea to finished piece.

It all starts with the creation of a drawing that will be the visual for the tapestry. Either the impetus comes from a very personal desire, or it’s a commission. My first sketches are always done by hand, then reworked on Photoshop to define the chromatic range and the most harmonious format. Once the composition has been validated, I project and trace the drawing on my tufted canvas, followed by the realisation phase, including the choice of techniques for each element.

I often use purely manual techniques such as knitting, crocheting and knotted stitch for the foregrounds, and these allow me to create much more assertive volumes. Once the tapestry has been completely covered with the various techniques, I glue the reverse side to ensure durability over time. The last stage is the finishing touches. This stage is quite magical. Using scissors and clippers, I cleanly redefine all the lines and create bas-reliefs: the tapestry comes to life.

“My hands shake, repeating the same series of gestures, letting my mind wander through my thoughts. These are meditative moments that I love.”

Are there any rituals or routines you follow to get into a creative mindset?

There are two stages in creation: the drawing stage and the tapestry-making stage. For the second part, I don’t have a routine. I move forward little by little, picking up each day where I left off the day before. I sometimes feel as if my mind is dissociated from my body. My hands shake, repeating the same series of gestures, letting my mind wander through my thoughts. These are meditative moments that I love.

The drawing-research phase? That’s another story. Either the ideas come to me spontaneously on a daily basis and I quickly jot them down before they disappear, or I decide to stimulate my imagination. To do this, I have three rituals: watching documentaries, leafing through my sketchbooks to collect all the ideas that cross my mind, or plunging into the books I’ve conscientiously chosen to make up my library. These cover a wide spectrum: history, geology, naturalism, painting, science-fiction comics…

Many of your artworks are vividly colourful and playful, subverting what we might assume a tapestry to be. Is that purposeful?

To be honest, I didn’t get into this profession out of a love of tapestry, but out of a desire to bring an immersive dimension to my paintings, which seemed too flat to me. So, perhaps being a novice enabled me to approach this practice in a totally self-taught way, and to free myself from the representations and codes that are specific to it. I still find it hard to explain what drives me to materialise my mental projections, and why the use of knitwear became an obvious choice. The blankets and other works knitted by my grandmother, my great-grandmother and so many other women before them must have been inscribed in me as an unconscious heritage to be carried on in a personal and contemporary way.

Your work tends to depict nature – why is that?

I’m a very anxious person by nature and I think my work has a cathartic vocation, as much in the meditative side of the gestures I repeat as in the themes I tackle. The textile worlds I create are like bubbles preserved from the harshness of the outside world. I take great pleasure in treating peaceful landscapes with luxuriant vegetation populated by animals, insects and unreal creatures. All these living beings evolve in a composition where no single element really takes precedence over the others.

When there is a human presence in the picture, the eye is drawn directly to it. Instead of contemplating the picture in its entirety, we first wonder about the identity of the individual, his emotions and what he symbolises. What’s more, the clothes he’s wearing, for example, immediately impose a sense of scale and temporality. By eliminating any human presence, I aim to preserve the artist’s capacity for immersion and to represent a pristine nature untouched by man. That said, I’m not averse to the idea of portraiture when it’s the main subject of the painting. In fact, I produced a large diptyque of Marie-Laure and Charles de Noailles for the Villa Noailles.