TIPTOE: 10 years of design-driven growth
TIPTOE built a top-tier design brand starting from a single table leg. Over the past decade, they’ve expanded their range and team, always with a strong focus on sustainability and ethics. We explore their design model in this exclusive interview with founder Matthieu Bourgeaux.
TIPTOE is a standout French design brand known for its clean, smart, and sustainable furniture, lighting, and accessories. If you work in the design industry, chances are you’ve already come across their work.
Their story is one of thoughtful growth – a mix of bold innovation, strategic choices, and a strong ethical backbone. Ten years on, Tiptoe continues to grow, guided by a unique design model that redefines how a modern design company can operate.
In this interview, we speak with co-founder Matthieu Bourgeaux (who founded TIPTOE together with Vincent Quesada) to learn more about the method behind their success.
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Everything began with a single product, your iconic table leg. From there, the TIPTOE expanded. When did you feel the need to internalize design, and how do you recognize the right moment to launch something new?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“The table leg was our manifesto: simple, bold, democratic, and built to last. At first, we grew organically, responding to what felt both natural and meaningful. Internalizing design was never about control for the sake of control, but about coherence. We realized that to create a collection with depth and consistency, we had to take ownership of the design process. For us, the right moment to launch a new product is when three forces align: a real functional need, a strong design intuition, and the ability to produce it responsibly in Europe. If one of these elements is missing, we wait. However we are now starting to mix internal designs with edition projects with top-notch international designers. We are very excited about what we will disclose next year!”
Working with manufacturing partners requires a deep sense of trust and precision. Do you follow a specific approach – or even a “designed” process – to manage production and logistics?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“We see our manufacturing partners not as suppliers, but as an extension of our design team. Precision, trust, and long-term relationships are the foundation. Our “process” is less about bureaucracy and more about dialogue, iteration, and shared standards. We design with production in mind from day one: material constraints, tooling, logistics are part of the creative equation. That’s what makes our pieces feel effortless yet extremely robust.”
You started by selling online, a bold move at the time for a furniture company. Was that born out of necessity or vision? And how has that choice influenced your way of designing?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“Selling online in 2015 was both necessity and vision. Necessity because we were a small independent studio with limited resources, and vision because we believed furniture could (and should) be bought in a new way: direct, transparent, and global. This choice deeply shaped our design: pieces had to be flat-packed, easy to assemble, shippable worldwide, yet still beautiful and durable. That constraint pushed us to invent a language of clarity and essentiality.”
Do you have a kind of “design checklist”- key characteristics that a product must meet to be considered truly Tiptoe?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“Yes, we have a checklist – though it’s more like a compass. A Tiptoe product must be:
- Simple : intuitive, functional, essential
- Bold : ingenious, modular, surprising
- Strong : robust, long-lasting
- Sustainable responsibly made in Europe, from quality materials, repairable
- Singular : clear aesthetic, instantly recognizable. If a design doesn’t tick all these boxes, it doesn’t make it to production.”
Does your distribution mode, largely direct-to-consumer, influence the physical design of the objects? Does it push you toward certain constraints or freedoms?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“Selling directly means we think constantly about the person unboxing, assembling, and living with our products. We design not only for function and aesthetics, but for the whole experience: packaging, assembly, lifespan. We try to keep this mindset even if we are now building a strong retail network.”
Is your internal team and company management structured around a specific philosophy? In other words, is your way of running Tiptoe… designed?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“Yes, running TIPTOE is also a design project. We see the company itself as a system to be designed: flat hierarchies, responsibility shared, clarity in goals, and coherence in everything we do. We are 40 people, but we try to work like a tight studio: collaborative, human, with strong trust.”
Your communication is extremely coherent and human – clear, yet never overly commercial. How do you approach the challenge of expressing your values without oversimplifying them?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“We believe communication should never feel like “marketing.” Our tone is human because we speak the way we think: clear, transparent, and unpretentious. We don’t oversimplify, because our audience values honesty. People today can sense when a brand is authentic or not. Our rule is to never shout and never fake.”
You’ve collaborated with other design studios in the past. How do you choose the right partner and how do those collaborations fit into your internal design model?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“We collaborate when there’s a genuine spark – not for the sake of a press release. We look for partners who bring a unique point of view, often with a strong added value. Collaborations are for us moments of dialogue that enrich our internal culture. We try to keep them rare, but meaningful.”
Your approach seems more thoughtful than fast-paced. How do you manage time in product development – and has resisting speed become part of your design model?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“We try to resist the obsession with speed. Good design takes time – to iterate, to test, to refine. We prefer to launch fewer products, but make them last for decades. In a way, slowness is our competitive edge: it keeps us true to our values and prevents us from chasing trends.”
And finally, what can we expect from Tiptoe in the near future that reflects the next evolution of your design model?
Matthieu Bourgeaux:
“The next chapter for TIPTOE is about scale with integrity. We want to become one of the leading studios of European industrial design – a brand that proves you can grow while staying radical in clarity, sustainability, and coherence. Expect deeper explorations into modularity, new material innovations, and more bridges between design, architecture, and everyday life. Our ambition is to define what the “new wave” of European design means – and to do it with boldness and humility at once.”
This interview with the TIPTOE founder is one of the articles of the series Design Models. Have a look at our main article here.
About the author
Mario Alessiani, founder and creative director of the Italian namesake design studio, specializes in product, lighting, and furniture design. His clients include companies such as Umbra, Fabbian, and Axolight. Mario also teaches at the University of Camerino, IED Rome and Sichuan Normal University in China. His work has been exhibited at prestigious events like the ADI Design Museum in Milan, Eindhoven Design Week, and Milan Design Week, earning him awards like the IF Design Award and Archiproducts Design Award.
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