By the age of 19, school-dropout Starck had established his first business in Paris, making inflatable objects. He moved from there to designing nightclubs that attracted the attention of the then French President Francois Mitterand and he was invited to refurbish one of Mitterand's private apartments in the Elysée Palace in 1982. Continuing his prolific streak through the 1980s and 1990s, his products grew even more suggestive of character or personal identity and Starck often conferred upon them clever, poetic, even whimsical names (for example, his Rosy Angelis lamp, the La Marie chair, the playful Prince Aha stool and even the ominous Dr No chair). While the material and form would seem to be contradictions, it is just such paradoxes that make Starck's work so compelling and fun. "A designer's role is to create more happiness with less," he has said, and towards that, Starck is not bound by scale, budgets or even quantities.

In 1988, Starck was commissioned by famed nightclub impresario Ian Schrager, former co-owner of Studio 54, to refit the Royalton Hotel on New York's West 44th Street. It was a design moment that has since changed the hotel industry - boutique hotels became the industry buzz and Starck the sector's unimpeachable master! Over the years the legendary ‘New Design' artist - as many have come to view Starck - brought new life to hotels across the globe, including the legendary Mondrian Hotel (Las Vegas, 1996). On a smaller scale, two of Starck's iconic designs include stylised toothbrushes (1989) and a sleek juicer dubbed the Juicy Salif created for Alessi in 1990, which is now considered an affordable and popular cult item.

By Pratyush Sarup for InsideOut magazine

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