THE collector
Australian fashion designer Martin Grant has a passion for accumulating mementoes, textiles and vintage flea market finds. His sunny urban oasis home and chic showroom in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement both provide the perfect backdrop.
“In my collections, the colours change four times a year, so at home, I always prefer to have a very neutral space and bring colour in through flowers and cushions”
Walking into fashion designer Martin Grant’s home and garden terrace, you might forget you’re in the heart of Paris’s arty 3rd arrondissement. “It’s more like stepping into a country escape than an urban apartment,” says the Australianborn Grant of his fourth-storey space at the top of a 17th-century building in Le Haut Marais. “It wasn’t particularly what I was looking for at the time, but it has turned out very, very well.” The idyllic seclusion of the apartment, which Grant found 13 years ago, affords him an escape from the hectic demands he faces as one of the city’s most sought-after independent designers. (Grant’s emphasis on pared-back simplicity and couture detailing has garnered him such A-list fans as Marion Cotillard, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton.) “There’s no traffic noise and no vis-à-vis — we don’t overlook anyone, and no one overlooks us — so it’s very peaceful and has constant full-blown sun on either side of the apartment in both summer and winter,” he says. It was a lucky fifind. “It was the second apartment I visited,” says Grant, “and it was much more than I was planning to spend.” But in addition to ticking all his wish- list boxes — a fifireplace, natural light and a terrace — the apartment also proved unique. “It’s not closed-in like it can be in the Marais, with its small streets and apartments looking straight into each other; this was completely different,” he says. The previous owners had already renovated the home but Grant repainted everything white, including the walls, woodwork, mantelpiece and exposed beams. “The beams had been left natural and varnished; it felt like I was living in an English pub,” he says. He also sanded and oiled the floors. “Otherwise, I liked what they’d done.” The terrace garden sealed the deal. “It’s tiny but almost more important to me than the apartment itself,” Grant says. “From pretty much everywhere in the apartment, thanks to its U- shaped design, you can see garden.” The mood inside the apartment is at once harmonious and eclectic, says Grant, thanks to what he calls a “weird mix of things”. He inherited his passion for Mid-century pieces from his forward-thinking parents, who made their family home a 1960s, clean-lined Robin Boyd- designed house in Blackburn, outside Melbourne. So, against a backdrop of pieces with clean, Modernist lines, Grant has fifilled his current apartment with a warmth of antique, cultural and textural inflfluences. The furniture includes a number of vintage flflea market fifinds, such as Mid- century Scandinavian sofas, fifine-legged tables and Gio Pontistyle chairs. To line his walls, Grant has swapped frocks for photography and artworks by friends, including Australian artist Rosslynd Piggott and photographer Polly Borland. To accessorise, there are Willy Rizzo table lamps, vases from Luxor and cabinets featuring intriguing mementos from his travels, such as delicate ceramics, anemone shells, pretty paperweights and apothecary bottles. ››
‹‹ Grant never goes in search of specific items to fit the space. “It will always be something that catches my eye — whether it’s because of its shape or its material,” he says. Consequently, his home has a clean but layered feel, with pieces he’s accumulated in nearly 20 years of fossicking at flflea markets. Craftsmanship also appeals to Grant, from the beauty of a curved chair he rescued from a skip and reupholstered to the Indigenous baskets that line his kitchen walls. “I’m naturally attracted to textiles, particularly handicrafts from Morocco, Greece, Egypt or Australia from the people making them — when possible — because I understand and appreciate so much of what has gone into making them,” he says. Against the apartment’s neutral background, hints of moss green come through — from the sofa, the curtains, the terrace’s foliage and the jasmine that grows around the windowpanes. “In my collections, the colours change four times a year, so at home, I always prefer to have a very neutral space and bring colour in through flflowers and cushions,” Grant says. “Green is one of the few colours I like living with.” ››
“When I see something that speaks to me, I have to get it, but then I have to find a place for it”
‹‹ Although his apartment may be unconventional, his nearby studio on Rue Charlot is quintessential 19th-century Haussmann. With its high ceilings, intricate cornices, well-worn parquetry and iron detailing, the mood maintains a residential feel. More of Grant’s flea market finds, theatrical props and iconic designs from Eero Saarinen and George Nelson further emphasise this domestic atmosphere. Both spaces provide Grant the opportunity to showcase his passion for collecting. “When I see something that speaks to me, I have to get it, but then I have to find a place for it,” he says. Similar to the cycle of designing new fashion collections from one season to another, Grant also feels the need for change at home, so he moves the whole apartment around. “I might shift the table under the window and move the sideboard under the mirror,” he says. “I change the paintings, I move things in and out of the cellar or I bring them to work. Each time, it makes me feel like I’ve moved into a new space. It continually inspires me.”
Visit martingrantparis.com.