Élizabeth Garouste was born Élizabeth Catherine Rochline, raised in Paris, to a family who owned the shoes factory Tilbury, where Garouste worked designing shoes after graduating high school. She studied interior architecture at the École Camondo in Paris and went on to design theater sets for director Jean-Michel Ribes (b. 1946). In the late 1970s, Garouste met Swiss designer Mattia Bonetti (b. 1952), and the pair formed a working collaboration that lasted for decades. They were named Designers of the Year at the International Furniture Fair in 1991.
Eclectic and irreverent, Garouste’s designs defy the boundaries of “good taste.” Mixing influences, Garouste’s work combines the raw and unexpected materials such as iron, stone, and leather popular in the “primitive art” movement with forms and gilding associated with Rococo and Neoclassical design.