La Table, award of honor at the innovation awards

Alexandre Chapelin was given the award of honor at the Innovation Awards organized by Initiative Saint-Martin Active last Friday. With La Table, he restores life to objects or materials considered as dead by creating unique custom-made art tables. In his forties and from Nantes, he describes himself as a "multi-talented epicurean". He founded his company last year during a botched dinner.

“I got the idea while bored during a meal with some friends who I had invited over. So I started to stare at things around me in order to find something to talk about. A I realized that there was something wrong with my furniture. Once the guests had left, I started to drink alone in front of my computer. I thought about my life and everything that I had done.” After getting a professional training certificate (BEP) in composite materials, a certificate of professional competence (CAP) in cooking, a degree in graphic design and interior decoration, and having been the manager of a bar and restaurant as well as a DJ, he decided to create a table with wooden planks on which he poured a resin.

With this project, he managed to unite all his skills and experience. Since then, the process has evolved, but the idea is the same. Alexandre Chapelin works on everything that he can think of: wood, an old boat engine, marble… which he keeps as is or uncases with a numerical control machine. He then puts it in a wooden mold in which he pours an inclusion resin step by step in order to obtain different layers. Except for special orders, all the marble that he has been using for six months comes from Anguilla. He buys unusable stone waste, which no one wants except him, for its cavities formed several thousands of years ago by erosion. “I don’t do art, design, or decoration, but all three at the same time” he explained.

A worldwide success

Such a work requires an infrastructure and logistics and could not be done without the designer Patrick Lapierre based in Hope Estate where all the tables are manufactured. “I manufacture them, I sell them, I advertize them" declared Alexandre Chapelin, but I couldn’t do anything without him. Indeed, although they have sold two tables in Saint-Martin and one in Saint-Barth, 85% are exported (and therefore transported) abroad: Dubai, London, Beijing… his bestselling model, the LAGOON 55 is sold at 11,000 euros (excluding taxes and shipping fees). He realizes that he is targeting an elite clientele for this price, but regrets that there are no consumer loans for buying works of art. "In France, the average cost of a new car is about 30,000 € while you lose 10,000 € as soon as you put the key in the ignition. I think it’s better to buy a car at 20,000 € and invest 10,000 € in a table that won’t lose its value" he said. 

Although he used to receive only one request for a quote every six months, in the beginning, he has now been getting 50 a day since December 2015. "I had an upswing just before launching a show room and I began to advertize about us on the Internet". A communication campaign which has been rather efficient since his Facebook account now has 10,000 followers while the video in which he presents Patrick Lapierre and himself has been viewed more than 22,000 times. From specialized reviews to websites, dozens of articles have been devoted to his invention. A success for this workaholic who says he works everyday from 5 am to 11 pm and also wants to recruit a Business Development Manager. With a good head on his shoulders, he is "overjoyed" about having won the innovation award in Saint-Martin: "It's good to be acknowledged in the place where you work and winning this competition was an absolute must before signing up for the others". La Table has indeed been invited to London for the 2015 young creators design competition.