Pierre studied in France – first ceramics in Vallauris and then stone-carving in Burgundy, intending to become a sculptor. Sadly, a severed tendon in his right arm put paid to his intentions to follow in his great uncle’s footsteps. He then enrolled at the École Camondo design school in Paris, where a teacher urged him to join furniture designer Marcel Gascoin’s workshop. He served as an apprentice and learned his trade before travelling to Scandinavia and the United States. He cited Ray and Charles Eames and George Nelson among his influences and, like Nelson, considered himself a functionalist who added “two little drops of poetry” to his work.