Toilets on trend from Trone

Parisian toilet brand Trone is on a mission to give the toilet a whole new image. And what an image! The young company, only four years in business, has created a seemingly endless photo collection of toilet interiors that make you smile, wonder and wish to immediately visit them all. Not one of their original universes fails to offer surprising details, clearly illustrating the visual efforts and imagination behind the Trone team.

Founder Hugo Volpei came up with the idea of a ‘design toilet’ after visiting one of London’s most-talked-about restaurant interiors, Sketch, with its highly artful and decorative dining concept. Despite the strikingly unconventional toilet surroundings, Volpei spotted the traditional white toilets mounted on the wall, and thought, why not rethink the toilet bowl itself? He consulted an architect, a close childhood friend, to join him on this design challenge and together they created the idea and design of their first toilet, Icone01.

Trone now presents two toilet designs, Icone01 and the latest addition, Callipyge – both visually intriguing. Icone1 instantly catches the eye with its transparent water container, standing up like an enclosed water fountain behind the toilet and using just three litres of water to flush, the minimum required for toilets today. Callipyge radiates geometric playfulness, reminiscent of the 1920’s art deco style with its sculptural format. The toilets’ colourful and shiny glazed surfaces underline the visions behind Trone: that toilets can also be elegant, joyful and imaginative.  

While at this moment 60% of their toilets are sold to private customers, Trone started out mainly targeting the hotel and restaurant industry. ‘We’ve been fortunate to work with famous restaurant groups like Big Mamma who was our first client,’ says Volpei, ‘Without any prototypes, solely based on images, they said go for our first project together.’ Since then, Trone has collaborated with several renowned chefs and Michelin-starred restaurants, willing to join their creative ambition of ‘reinventing the toilet experience’.

‘To create a strong brand, we have deliberately decided to approach this business differently than the classic bathroom industry,’ says Volpei. ‘For our photo shoots, we hired fashion photographers and sourced out locations which were closely linked to design and art, for example, the Villa Cavrois from 1932 by French modernist architect, Robert Mallet-Stevens.’ Villa Cavrois has been a backdrop for many photo shoots in design and fashion since its reopening in 2015, though not for toilets until Trone came along.

Alongside building up a strong visual image, Trone is establishing a company based on human and social values. By the end of this year, they expect to receive a certification from B Corp, an international association whose mission is to promote a business model that uses business for the benefit of the general interest. ‘We wish to be engaged in a contemporary and forward-thinking movement where questions of how to take the best care of people, community and environment comes naturally,’ says Volpei. For that reason, Trone collaborates with French and Italian manufacturers and craftsmen in small-scale production facilities, prepared to work with specialised and customised products, and close enough in distance to keep in regular contact.

For Volpei, the wish to create a positive impact goes as far as wanting to influence western culture’s taboos related to going to the toilette. Unlike in Japanese culture, where high-tech toilets have been normal since the 1980s, in the West, toilet talk remains a delicate topic. ‘Our products are not all about aesthetics,’ explains Volpei, ‘Our engineers are busy trying to invent products which can create comfortable toilet experiences, for example by addressing the smell issues after a toilet visit; we have already registered a patent for an anti-odour technology which can get rid of the smell in just 30 seconds. This product will be integrated into our collection sometime soon.’

Who knows, perhaps toilet shopping might become as normal a conversation topic as where to buy your new sofa. The level of sophistication and imagination offered by Trone definitely sparks an interest in including more humour, fantasy and refinement into something as mundane and common as paying a visit to the toilet.

© Architonic

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