Garouste and Bonetti's collaboration began in 1980 when they worked jointly on the decor of the Privilège club, which was part of Le Palace, Paris' most celebrated night club at the time. Indeed Gérard Garouste had been commissioned a set of decorative panels for the club and turned to his wife and Mattia Bonetti for help in designing the space and decorating it. Together they produced a theatrical and magical set up, complete with wall paintings, plaster masks, columns draped with stucco and padded upholstery in the spirit of architect and decorator Emilio Terry (1890-1969). The result was such a success that the two designers decided to team up; together they developed a style markedly different from the sleek lines of the design of the time. A long period of collaborations ensued, with monumental projects such as the interior design of Bernard Picasso's Boisgeloup château and Christian Lacroix's Haute Couture headquarters.
Their production known as "Les Nouveaux Barbares" was championed by Pierre Staudenmeyer's Neotù gallery. Garouste and Bonetti deliberately ignored functionalism and standardisation, favouring primitivism and an antiquated form of elegance instead. In 1991 Grand Hornu Images hosted a retrospective show entitled Elisabeth Garouste & Mattia Bonetti / 1981-2001 which covered twenty years of collaboration. In 2002 the pair separated.