Maria Pergay is a Romanian-born French designer best known for her unique use of stainless steel in producing tables, belt buckles, decorative artifacts, chairs, and daybeds. Pergay’s pieces often feature organic shapes such as waves, rings, and shells. Born in 1930 in Moldova, Romania to Russian-Jewish parents, Pergay and her mother fled to France at the beginning of World War II. After the war, Pergay studied costumery, set design, and sculpture at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris, before opening her own shop to sell decorative silver objects. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that she began using stainless steel. Pergay lives and works in Paris, France. Today, her works are held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.