To create unique interiors, Stéphanie Coutas has surrounded herself with a network of trusted partners. As a bathroom specialist, David Bitton has cultivated a passion for outstanding expertise and has supported SC Edition since its inception. We met up with these two inspiring characters.
What does your job entail?
David Bitton: I’m a distributor for mid-range and luxury bathrooms, kitchens and wall and floor coverings. I take the best furniture, tile and material manufacturers and I select the brands that are capable of customising products in a way that will meet architects’ and decorators’ needs. I act as an intermediary between industry and architects and designers. My job is to find the best that each brand can offer in terms of decoration, the technical properties of materials, and value for money. Experience has taught me a genuine “product awareness”, and it’s this that I offer my clients.
How are new objects and trends created?
DB: Trends have developed hugely thanks to new industrial tools. It’s now possible to reproduce materials such as wood, marble or stone on more lightweight backings. This opens up a wealth of possibilities. We can take a design by a designer such as Stéphanie Coutas and create an identical pattern, even on premium materials.
Our showroom’s range of products and finishes is constantly expanding. The number of finishes we can offer Stéphanie Coutas is increasing all the time, from matte gold, to rose gold, chrome or gun metal. She loves combining these with mother-of-pearl, marble and ceramics. I provide her with the materials and she creates the trends.
How did Stéphanie Coutas and David B meet?
DB: A mutual friend introduced me to Stéphanie Coutas 13 years ago. I’d just created the David B brand. Stéphanie visited our showroom when she was researching materials for a private client’s project. We clicked straightaway and that was the start of many years of working together. Our businesses expanded similarly in terms of both the number of projects we were working on and the quality we were looking for in our finishes.
Stéphanie Coutas David Bitton and Claudine Penou at the Montaigne Collection event
What’s the most complicated project you’ve done for SC Edition?
DB: We help SC Edition with projects in France and abroad. They’ve been fascinating from a technical point of view – because of the volumes involved and the level of quality required – but they’ve been great in terms of creativity, too. That’s what makes working with leading designers such as Stéphanie Coutas so interesting. Together, we’ve created bathrooms and spas for a 4000 m2 Egyptian palace, as well as Parisian townhouses with a private pool. This is how we came up with some completely original artistic creations based on Stéphanie’s designs: a bathroom decorated wall to floor with outsize SICIS mosaic flowers combined with marble, for example. I also remember this fantastic backlit sink with a mosaic and onyx marble stand, selected by Stéphanie for her apartment on Place des États-Unis. It was an extraordinary piece, perfectly illustrating her unique, elegant style.
What’s special about working with a company like SC Edition?
DB: Stéphanie Coutas is quicker than anyone else at making decisions. She’s a businesswoman with a very full diary, so she sometimes finds it tricky to schedule long meetings with her partners. But she’s very diligent about coming to the showroom in person. She identifies the things she likes and she knows immediately what projects she’ll use them for. These meetings help to inspire her, she wants to touch the materials and envisage different variations and combinations. This is why her bathrooms always have a very multifaceted identity.
“Stéphanie is a brilliant woman who always has a special place in her heart and in her work for her partners.”
The David B showroom completely renovated
What upcoming challenges are you getting ready to tackle?
DB: We’ve just renovated the David B Parisian showroom – 750 m2 of space for large format and extra-large format designs. We use it to present handcrafted and industrially manufactured products in styles ranging from vintage to ultra-minimalist. We’ve got an incredible selection that includes Dornbracht, Fantini and Gessi bathroom fittings, Antonio Lupi and Agape bathroom furniture, and tiling from Ariostea, Florim and Casa Dolce Casa. And that’s before we even mention the outstanding mosaics, like our SICIS range.
What would be your dream project for Stéphanie Coutas?
Since 2005, we’ve completed projects in private residences of all sizes and across the world with SC Edition. In 2018, we worked on our first hotel – the Hôtel Dress Code – and helped Stéphanie Coutas to create her first collection of bathroom accessories alongside the prestigious brand THG. We’ll also sell this collection in our showroom.
In the near future, I hope we’ll have the pleasure of working on other types of projects so that we can take on new challenges – a yacht, maybe!
