With Paris increasingly gaining importance on the global cultural map, it’s no surprise that Paris Design Week is brimming with unexpected and creative events – especially one where a motorcycle and an arts and design school join forces. Partnering with the prestigious Ecole Duperré, electric motorcycle lifestyle brand Flying Flea hosted three days of events, talks, masterclasses, DJ sets and a school-wide exhibition to capture the crossover between technology, design and creativity.
Born from the idea of parent company Royal Enfield, which will be celebrating its 125th birthday next year, the Flying Flea x Ecole Duperré crossover was conceived as a means to centralise Flying Flea around young generations, innovation, imagination and boundless creativity. The “laboratory” spirit of the collaboration – part experimentation, part incubator – has set the stage for an ongoing collaboration with Duperré. The art and design school opened its courtyards to installations by students, from immersive experiences to embroidery designs, which ran alongside talks, live radio stations, and rooftop cocktails. A rich exchange where the works of students acted as commentary and imagination around Flying Flea’s daring new world of mobility.
In collaboration with Flying Flea, Italian artist and designer Mattia Biagi presented the ‘Motototem Art Bike’ in the courtyard of Ecole Duperré: a sculptural re-imagination of the Flying Flea C6, created using hand-blown glass, travertine, walnut and bronze cast with his own hands. For Mattia Biagi, whose career has seamlessly brought together the worlds of fashion, design and sculpture, the project was both personal and historical. “Mario, the CGO of the company, told me about this new adventure with regards to the Flying Flea and this electric motorcycle. I thought it was very interesting and immediately, spontaneously, I thought: ‘we should do a sculpture motorcycle,’” Biagi recalls. “That’s pretty much how it came together. And I started to do sketches, trying to make sure I was respecting the design of the motorcycle.”
Materials were the starting point for ‘Motototem‘. Biagi brought together glass, ceramic, bronze and resin – materials that have marked his career in different ways and are references to works of Lucio Fontana to Giulio Cappellini. Biagi explains. “The past and future are really important in this project,” Biagi explains. “I used travertine which was used to do the Fontana di Trevi and the Colosseum in Rome. But also against this beautiful, modern aluminium frame, it shows the future. It was cool to reference the fact that Flying Flea, too, has a history, because this motorcycle was used many years ago – it was parachuted onto the battlefield. It’s also very futuristic.”
The cultural past of the Flying Flea is loaded with historical meaning and symbolism. It was originally a Royal Enfield model parachuted behind enemy lines during the Second World War – designed for rapid mobility and quick interventions.“Royal Enfield, who is the constructor iconic of the motorbike, decided to explore new sectors of activity and notably the electric part,” explains the team behind Flying Flea. “They created this brand Flying Flea – la puce volante in French – which is from an iconic model of the brand. It’s a motorbike synonymous with liberty and a return to life after this dark period. During this phase of creating a new brand and new entities it seemed important to position this brand in a slightly different way. The world of arts, of creation, of culture seemed pertinent.”
As Royal Enfield prepares to launch the Flying Flea as an electric urban motorcycle, the future of mobility and how we conceive our interactions with space, the city and travel are about to change. Rethinking mobility with a sustainable approach is what is motivating the team behind Flying Flea to push boundaries in the ways we engineer mobility. Flying Flea and Duperré are a synergy to deliver limitless horizons and to allow the creative minds to thrive.
For Duperré’s students, the weekend-long event meant both exposure and dialogue. “It brings a lot of visibility. But it also allows us to meet professionals, to see what we do and for people to realise that fashion is very wide. It’s not only superficial – it can be very political,” says Paul Simian, a third-year fashion student specialising in embroidery. “The ultimate goal would be to create my own brand, my universe. I think that that route is complicated, so in fact to be able to work for brands, cross savoir-faire – that would be great because we can bring creativity and learn new techniques.”
As the events of the weekend panned out and unravelled with a constant flow of design aficionados and students gravitating around the central courtyard of Ecole Duperré, the ‘Motototem’ stole attention. It was impossible to ignore: people couldn’t resist touching it. “That’s why I had to put the sign ‘Don’t touch,’ because it’s a sculpture, and everybody started to touch it,” Biagi laughs. “But really that sensorial emotion that makes people want to touch – ‘Is this real stone? Or is this bronze?’ – that sense of curiosity that engages them, that, for me, means it is super successful.”
Beyond aesthetics, Biagi sees his work as an invitation. “More and more, I do these projects to inspire others, and especially we’re in a school of creative people, so I really hope they can see at least a glimpse of inspiration in the motorcycle.”
Flying Flea’s team echoes that impulse. “Flying Flea allows us to explore different aspects and different opportunities: not only new commercial trends, but also new ways to integrate design and bring something new into the brand.”
As Biagi puts it: “For me, art is something that has to create an emotion in you; it can be positive or negative, but at least it creates something. Otherwise, if you pass in front [my work] and it doesn’t move you, I don’t think I did something cool.” As the sun set over the Parisian skyline and the vibing mass of students, guests and creatives all came together on the rooftop of the Ecole Duperré, there was a distinctly clear feeling – collaborations like this are really what make things move. And we’re here to witness how this energy pans out in the future.
Discover more about Flying Flea here.
words. Patrick Clark
photography. Matt Sills and Courtesy of Flying Flea
