In my ideal bedroom, everyone has a role. Books linger, sheets stretch and yawn, and the furniture takes center stage. Those from Project 213A arrive from Portugal. Founded by Jurgita Dileviciute, Theresa Marx, and Clément Deboeuf, the studio operates its own wood and ceramic workshops there, collaborating with local artisans.
My bedroom? A permanent vaudeville. Some mornings, the curtain rises at 5:00 a.m.: I open Word and drown it under hundreds of words. Other mornings, I do nothing. On others still, I make animal noises to wake up Sonia, the neighbor's cat. Today, Priya arrives with croissants. She booked a flight to join her crush, took the risk, and caught a return flight the moment she landed. Pillow talk is needed: curtains closed, the Project 213A Coquette lamp on like a discreet, lit maid. Here, it is still night, and as long as it is night, Priya never took that plane. We are rewinding time.
Act II. 9:00 p.m. I blame my lover for the mess he made, kiss his vivacity, regret the decisions made during the day, refuse to conform by reading Esther Teillard’s Fuck Circus, put my legs up against the wall because "it helps with circulation," light the red and gold ceramic lamp glowing Project 213A to watch my shadow catch fire, and breathe in, to my very depths, the scent of the hair of the one who corrupts my heart.
Why does light alter our perception of intimacy?
Project 213A was born during the 2020 lockdown, when Jurgita Dileviciute, Theresa Marx, and Clément Deboeuf decided to unite paths that had, at first glance, little in common: Jurgita and Theresa came from fashion and shoe design at the University of the Arts London, Clément from finance in Paris. The name? Already written: 213A corresponds to a London address where each had lived at some point during their studies, an apartment located above a laundromat, whose facade can still be seen in the logo.
Launched in 2021, the studio quickly set up its creative quarters in the north of Portugal, where it opened its own ceramic and woodworking workshops, collaborating with local artisans. Here, they craft everything from a wooden table to an armchair, a mirror, or an immense lamp with a hand-sculpted ceramic base. Irregularities are not erased at all costs: they are part of the piece.
Portugal even made its way into the catalog: Porto, Minho, Madeira, Melides, Arouca, or Sintra lend their names to the creations. And the studio is not afraid of the slightly bizarre: the Foot Stool resembles a milking stool that has sprouted a human foot carved in wood, while the Mirror Lounge Chair, inspired by brutalism, covers its geometric lines in mirrors until it almost vanishes into the room.
