Holidays Get Surreal At Target

Design clients noticed his lighting fixtures, which look like masses of flowers and cast shadows that decorate walls. His Blossom chandelier (costing $35,000), which replicates a cherry branch in pink Swarovski crystal and LED lights, is pure couture. But for less than $80 each, his Garland and Midsummer Light fixtures are turning bare bulbs into design classics.

"They could really see that this was a language that was very suitable for them to sell," he says. "It's really something deep inside of me."

Boontje also has been on the leading edge of using digital technology in textile design, producing pixelated flower patterns, manipulating fabric into three-dimensional blossoms and scissoring yardage into cut-outs suitable for dividing loft space or draping over minimalist furniture.

Or inspiring the holiday banners that hang in nearly 1,400 Target stores.

Boontje's first piece of cut-out flower furniture -- a garden bench -- will be unveiled on Dec. 8 by Moss Gallery during the Design Miami weekend. The limited-edition piece, which looks like a giant paper garland (cost: $29,500) is not all that remote from the Target collection.

Boontje views high-end projects as laboratories for experimentation. The bench could lead to a mass-produced cut-out chair "in two or three years," says Boontje, who studied at the elite Design Academy in Eindhoven and received a master's degree at London's Royal College of Art.

In addition, his electronic flora and fauna are about to debut as part of a Target-sponsored project. On Dec. 4, Boontje will fly to New York to stage an interactive game called Bright Nights in Union Square Park. For most of next month, pedestrians will be able to play with projections of his snowflakes and forest creatures as they walk through the park.

Boontje was working at the cutting edge of minimalist design until 2000, when the birth of a daughter sent him on a search for fantasy and warmth. Four years later, at the Milan Furniture Fair, he hit his stride. At the invitation of the Italian design company Moroso, Boontje produced an installation of lighting and cutout fabrics, and the event, called "Happy Ever After," catapulted him to international stardom.

Boontje says he doesn't know whether the collaboration with Target will continue. For now, he hopes his work will make more people "aware that there is something really interesting going on in design -- that people actually are thinking creatively about the products we live with."