DIM - JOUBERT & PETIT

DIM (1919-1953)

The prestigious French design firm Décoration Intérieure Moderne also known as DIM was established by pioneering metal worker René Joubert (see left photo) and theatrical designer Georges Mouveau in 1919 for the edition and the production of furniture and interiors. While Joubert is a trained architect and has some experience of working in the decoration at Jansen's for few years, Mouveaux comes from the theater and brings his scenic past to the association.

In 1923, Joubert is alone, working for a full year before he met Philippe Petit, who comes from Primavera (Le Printemps' studio). Joubert maintains infuence on Petit during the years, drawing most of the furniture with strong lines, with reduced or no ornamentation, softened by carpets and wallpaper of Petit and his staging. Joubert takes his inspiration from the styles of Louis XVI and Restoration, somewhat reminiscent of the work of Leuleu or Follot. Besides their mass production, oak or walnut, Joubert and Petit also manufacture luxury furniture, exotic wood veneer which they exploit the "graining" for a rich clientele and a smaller number of copies. In addition to furniture, DIM also creates lighting, mirrors, tapestries, carpets and various items of art. At the Exhibition of 1925, DIM takes two shops on the Pont Alexandre III (shops #37 and #39), where their furnishings are complemented by the work of Daum, Desagnat and Tisseyre. They also show a piano on the stand of the Pleyel firm, and the entire dining room of the French Embassy, ​​which give them an immediate success.

DIM gradually becomes more modernist. Joubert brings the metal in his designs from 1927, which he exhibits at the Salon d'Automne and receives an order from a café in New York with only chairs and tables in metal tubes. At the 1929 exhibition, the modernist little dressing that they exhibit, highly pure made of crystal and metal shows their evolution and their adaptation to the "mode" of the time.

Joubert's death in 1931 and the departure of Petit, the same year, do not end the activity of DIM, which exhibits in the Salons independently alongside Petit, who dies in 1945.