MY WORLD: DELFINA DELETTREZ FENDI
A LOOK INSIDE the ECCENTRIC PARIS APARTMENTof JEWELLERY DESIGNER DELFINA DELETTREZ FENDI UNEARTHS MORE THAN a FEW GEMS
We explore the jewellery designer’s life and style through her Parisian home
Walking into jewellery designer Delfina Delettrez Fendi’s one-bedroom apartment in Paris is like stepping into another time and place — a scene from Madmen, if film director and aesthete Luca Guadagnino were charged with an Italian remake. Nothing you see here is contemporary: the 31-year-old has an enviable flair for mixing antiquities such as Venetian lamps, Roman columns (which she’s mounted on walls) and ancient tiles from Naples with mid-century-modern Italian furniture. ‘Even the toilet is from the Sixties,’ she laughs.
For ten years now, this Paris apartment has been a second home for Delettrez, who currently lives in Rome with her partner, musician Nico Vascellari, their twin sons and her 11-year-old daughter Emma. She first discovered this spot after visiting her great-aunt Carla Fendi’s apartment, just next door, and became determined to find something of her own here. ‘I felt a connection with this square because it’s so unexpected,’ she says of the location, just off the bustling boulevards of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
The eldest daughter of Silvia Venturini Fendi, the creative director of accessories and menswear at Fendi, Delettrez is half French and half Italian. She grew up between Italy and Brazil, in rambling homes brimming with beautiful objects. Two such items, twin mirrors by Gio Ponti, have found their place on the wall of her living room. ‘Those really remind me of my childhood. They were my grandmother’s first, and then they hung in the entrance of my mother’s home in Rome,’ she says. ‘When my mother first came here, she said, “I think what you’re missing is something I have in my house...”’ Other items Delettrez has inherited include her grandmother’s set of gold-trimmed Limoges china, which sits in the dining room next to monogrammed cutlery.
Although Delettrez’s decorative taste might sound decadent, she brings an air of lightness to the apartment. It was originally upholstered with fusty carpets and the like, but she has stripped it all back. There’s a lot of negative space, save for a few well-placed precious items, including a large jewel-like crystal chandelier in the dining room. You see more of her in the surfaces scattered with curiosities, items accumulated over the years from local flea markets and antique stores. Endearingly, with a knowing smirk, she calls the collection of creatures, mostly insects cast from metal, and vintage shell vases and ashtrays, her ‘metal zoo’. ‘Sometimes they are
HER TASTE MIGHT SOUND DECADENT, but DELETTREZ BRINGS an AIR of LIGHTNESS TO THE APARTMENT
sweet-looking,’ she says, ‘sometimes they are more… repellent.’ It’s on these objects that she likes to display pieces from her eponymous line of jewellery, which she debuted more than a decade ago. It has since become known for its precious mix of punk and playfulness. She shows me a recent collection of gold earrings and pendants that each feature a diamond, or pearl-adorned circular forms through which you can blow bubbles. ‘They actually work as bubble blowers,’ she says, explaining that the idea came to her while pregnant last year.
The birth of the twins has also influenced the way she dresses, and of late she’s embraced a more practical style. ‘I’m wearing less and less jewellery,’ she admits. ‘And I don’t wear bags; I have this,’ she says, gesturing to Fendi’s SS19 utility belt, which she wears over a printed ‘skort’ from the Fendi menswear collection, styled with a wide-collar shirt. Heels, she admits, are no longer on high rotation. Still, Delettrez always looks polished, rarely without her signature kohl-rimmed eyes. It’s impossible to imagine her whipping off her bra after a long day and hunkering down to watch Netflix. In the living room, there is a generous amount of floor space, very few soft furnishings and almost no signs of everyday clutter — no halfdrunk cups of tea or piles of unanswered letters. ‘I realised recently that my homes are not made for you to feel comfortable; I don’t have the kind of sofas you melt into,’ she says, adding that she often sits on the floor.
‘The thing of staying in, lying on a couch watching TV and [playing] video games is not what made me who I am,’ she says.
When she does feel the need to kick back, she retreats to the bedroom: a light-dappled room that is sparsely furnished, save for her sheepskin-clad bed and a mid-century leather lampshade designed by Parisi that hangs overhead. I reach out to touch it and ask what skin it is. ‘It’s human,’ she jokes with a laugh as I quickly withdraw my hand. ‘I like to lie on my bed with the windows open and watch it sway in the breeze — it’s like my mobile,’ she says. Her surroundings are a constant source of inspiration. In this vein, she loves to gaze out of the window to the buzzing Paris streets below: ‘Looking out is like being in the front row at the theatre because you see so much: people fighting, playing the guitar, falling in love.’
DELETTREZ’S TWINS have INFLUENCED the WAY SHE DRESSES. HEELS are NO LONGER ON high ROTATION
HER JEWELLERY has BECOME KNOWN for ITS PRECIOUS MIX OF PUNK and PLAYFULNESS