An eclectic and creative personality, an architect as well as interior decorator and stage designer, Mallet-Stevens was in the 1920s the most significant exponent of the Cubist-Deco tendency, which within the modernist movement stood in opposition to the rationalism of Perret, Baudot and Le Corbusier.

Fundamental traits of his style are a marked propensity to an object's functionality, the essentiality of lines, and freedom of volumes. His architectural style, with its clear geometric forms, was highly renowned in Paris during the period between the two World Wars.

Stevens also served as president of the Union des Artistes Modernes, the association which brought together architects and designers who fought for the use of new materials and production in series, convinced that the furniture of the future had to be simple and conforming to the needs of contemporary life.

Many of his works were only rediscovered and studied a full century after his birth, when the complexity of his figure and place in history elicited new interest on the part of scholars.