Éva Goicochea founded New York-based sex and wellness brand Maude in 2018, disrupting the existing intimate health market with ‘quality, simplicity and inclusivity’. Today, it is one of the leading names in the industry, backed by Dakota Johnson (who is also Goicochea’s co-creative director).
Maude launched in the U.K. in 2022. Last year (2023) its gender-neutral toys and lubricants became the first of their kind to hit the shelves at Sephora. Beautiful enough not to be secreted away in a drawer, its design-led devices speak to a progressive and contemporary attitude to sexuality. So it was only a matter of time before they would go on display in a gallery setting. Last week (15 October 2024) the ‘Vibe’ personal massager and ‘Spot’ vibrator became part of a new exhibition at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris titled ‘Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media’.
Maude’s design-led sex devices go on display at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris
Curated by Christine Macel, MAD’s Director of Museums, Maude has also sponsored the exhibition with L’Oréal, which charts the history of ‘privacy’ from the 18th century to the present day. It does so through 470 different works, from paintings and photographs to decorative and everyday art objects, across 12 different themes including ‘Women and Privacy’, ‘Intimate Beauty and Fragrance’, ‘Promiscuity and Isolation’ and ‘Intimacy and Sexuality.’
‘Maude’s usefulness in the world is through design and I believe in art’s ability to make change,’ Goiochea tells Wallpaper*. ‘When I started thinking about launching Maude I noticed that there existed quite a luxury take on the sexual wellness space. And then the other end of the scale was more crass and commercial. But there wasn’t anything in between. It’s no wonder we can feel so uncomfortable with this topic if we’re required to be different people when we’re approaching it.’
The Maude devices in ‘Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media’ (which are situated in a glass vitrine alongside the likes of Hitachi’s ‘Magic Wand’) reference the smooth, sleekly contoured bronze and wood sculptures by Constantin Brâncuși. Goiochea cites her mother, an arts educator, as crucial in forming her relationship with art and design. This exposure, coupled with her background in healthcare legislation, led to a lightbulb moment while visiting MoMA: why not create ‘sex toys’ inspired by modernist art?
‘Historically, this category departs so far from [the idea of beauty]. Our mantra is that sexuality needn’t be so disconnected from every other part of your life. When functional things are beautiful too there’s a different level of appreciation that you experience,’ she says. ‘You then use that as an opportunity to have [open] conversations.’
This isn’t Goiochea’s first time collaborating with a museum, however. In December last year, she and Johnson made their curatorial debut at the Museum of in Sex Miami with ‘Modern’ Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency’, a show focussing on artefacts, historical media and medical objects speaking to this area.
But through Maude partnering with institutions such as MAD, Goiochea is clearly keen to encourage discussions around contemporary attitudes to sex and sexuality on a much broader level. (With this openness in mind, there will be several ‘moments’, activations conceived by the brand, throughout the run of ‘Private Lives’.)
‘Culturally I think we are in a moment of openness,’ she says. ‘Gen-Z are redefining how we talk about everything, sex included, which is great. Politically though, it’s not Gen-Z who is in office, so there is a big gap noticeable in the United States between a more liberal culture versus a more conservative politics.’
‘There’s a real dichotomy between the two,’ Goiochea concludes. ‘The approach that MAD has taken with this new show feels like the right context to do this in, using the historical lens and thinking about why we are where we are.’
‘Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media’ runs at the Musee d’arts Decoratifs in Paris until 30 March 2025.
