In the XIXth century, Jean-Pierre Duvelleroy’s son gathers and publishes the Language of the Fan, a leaflet detailing and explaining the coded gestures used to express discreetly things like “I love you” drawing the fan across the cheek or “Follow me” carrying the fan in the right hand in front of her face. In the early 1940s, Auguste Herbin developed another coded language, a language of form and color, his “alphabet plastique”. Freely inspired by this code and the idea of secret languages, the AIR and LEGERETE creations play with colors and shapes to express the essence of the fan: playing !

Sycamore wood sticks painted in blue. Printed cotton cloth, stiffened, hand-pleated and assembled to the frame.

Sycamore wood from China. Cotton.