The wok for stir-frying vegetables, the cozy comforter for sheltering from the cold, the paper ball shade for enjoying subdued light: Without British designer Terence Conran (1931-2020), these objects synonymous with sobriety, ergonomics and good taste would probably never have entered our daily lives. The founder of Habitat and The Conran Shop brands has recently suffered a second death, this time economic, with the announcement on November 28 of the closure of The Conran Shop's Paris boutique, scheduled for December 20, and the placement in receivership, on Wednesday, December 6, of Habitat.

Considered the father of mainstream design, Conran revolutionized Western interiors and inspired the likes of IKEA. After studying at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (later Central Saint Martins, one of England's most prestigious art and design schools) after the Second World War, Conran took a short trip to France in 1953.

Legend has it that it was at a market that the young man experienced an epiphany. Amazed by the abundantly stocked stalls where customers helped themselves directly to fruit and vegetables, he came up with the idea of selling self-service products. It was during this period that he designed and developed kit furniture but it was to be a failure (before IKEA took up the idea), mainly due to overcautious retailers who didn't know how to promote this new way of marketing furniture.

In 1964, at the age of 33, he opened his own boutique, Habitat, in London, just as the baby-boomer generation was entering the job market with a culture and wages in tune with the young creative entrepreneur's proposition. According to Christophe Gazel, Director of the Institut de Prospective et d'Études de l'Ameublement (IPEA), an organization that tracks furniture trends, "Terence Conran understood part of the way consumers functioned before anyone else, with the notion of self-service offered for original mid-range objects, brought back from his travels [the wok or the paper ball shade] and in phase with the societal upheavals of the time." Conran's collections were halfway between Bauhaus and Scandinavian style, with clean, functional yet warm furniture.

In his stores, which multiplied across Europe (the first French Habitat store opened in Paris in 1973), he offered classics before they became classics (lamps by Italian designers) and objects for the home, for those who couldn't afford his signature furniture. A passionate cook (he opened his first restaurant, The Soup Kitchen, in 1953), he imagined a global art of living, in which people recognized themselves and which he distilled into his catalog and best-selling books.

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