VOGUE LIVING VIEW

With a history of appreciating the finer things in life and the intrinsic value design plays in deriving that pleasure, the Gallic nation has led the way. It seems the French just do it better. By Ian Phillips

Designed by the Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels, The XI is one of the most spectacular real-estate projects currently under construction in Manhattan. Located directly on the Hudson River, it will consist of two twisting towers that look as if they’re engaged in a majestic mid-air dance. When completed, they will house not only the first Six Senses hotel in an urban setting, but also a plethora of luxury residences. Interestingly, only one of the three teams working on the interiors is American, the others are both French — Gilles & Boissier and Pierre Yovanovitch.

The allure of Parisian interior designers is nothing new, but in recent years their success has become almost stratospheric. Yovanovitch currently has some 30 projects on his drawing board, among them the extension of The Berkeley hotel in London, two residences in the Hamptons and another three in Los Angeles. Gilles & Boissier are equally busy, with assignments that include half-a-dozen hotel commissions, a 900-square-metre apartment in Buenos Aires and a ground-up beach house in Florida. And even the younger generation are benefitting from the fad for Gallic flair. The 33-year-old Paris-based architect Sophie Dries was recently hired to revamp a former business hotel in North Sydney. “The owner absolutely wanted someone French,” she told me.

Another reliable touchstone is the annual AD USA list of the world’s top 100 interior design and architecture firms. France tops the rankings for Europe, with nine entries in spite of some notable omissions, such as Jacques Grange and Jacques Garcia. Along with Yovanovitch, those who made the cut this year were Jean-Louis Deniot, Joseph Dirand, Luis Laplace, India Mahdavi, Isabelle Stanislas, Studio KO, Charles Zana and Tino Zervudachi. The only other country on the continent that garnered more than two mentions was the United Kingdom. ››

There are simply no two ways about it. For centuries, THE FRENCH have placed greater importance on interior design than anyone else

In my mind, there is no doubt that the largest concentration of decorating talent anywhere in the world is located in Paris and it’s long been evident that the French are born a step ahead of everyone else. They grow up steeped in tradition and surrounded by architectural wonders. “We’re marked by our history, by the decorative arts over the centuries and by the lifestyle of the royalty,” says Dorothée Boissier of Gilles & Boissier. “We’re formed by that.” While the same could also be true of other European nations like Italy and Germany, they have never had quite the same culture of decoration. Both have been more focused on architecture and product design. As the Genova-born Alessandro Scotto of the Paris-based design duo Lecoadic Scotto points out, “There were no interior design schools in Italy until four or five years ago.” As for English decorators, their work is often quite beautiful, but generally more classical and arguably lacking in the same flair and originality of their French counterparts — notable exceptions include the likes of Faye Toogood, Suzy Hoodless and Jonathan Reed.

There are simply no two ways about it. For centuries, the French have placed greater importance on interior design than anyone else. The École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs dates back to 1766 and Paris is home to a whole host of other top-quality schools, such as Penninghen and the École Camondo. The latter was founded in 1944 (proof that the French had their minds firmly fixated on decoration, even in wartime) and counts Philippe Starck, Pierre Paulin and Jean-Louis Deniot among its alumni. Decades before that, the Salon des artistes décorateurs was created in 1904 to showcase and promote the work of French interior designers, and continued more or less as an annual event until the early ’90s. And what could ever possibly rival the magnificence and staggering splendour of the legendary Exposition international des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, the birthplace of Art Deco? If time travel ever becomes a possibility in my lifetime, my first stop will be Paris, 1925!

In the meantime, I happily console myself with the annual AD Intérieurs showcase event, which was inaugurated by Vogue Living’s sister publication, AD France, in 2010. Every edition brings together a dozen-or-so designers, who are each attributed a room in which to work their magic. The standard is simply astounding. I still recall visiting one with Kelly Wearstler, whose eyes nearly popped out of her head, and at the opening party the following year, the editor-in-chief of one of the other European editions of AD ruefully told me that he could never organise a similar show. “We just don’t have enough good decorators”, he said.

AD Intérieurs is certainly an important factor in the current infatuation with Parisian design. It has provided visibility for a new generation of talent and propelled them to a whole new level. Another is the abundance of skilled French artisans, without whom all the splendiferous decors would never be possible. As Yovanovitch notes, “When I work abroad, I have trouble finding such specialised people, who can meet our requirements.” Various official bodies have been founded in recent years to support the crafts and a special Living Heritage Company status created, which allows designated firms tax breaks and access to government aid.

One thing that is striking is the difficulty to actually define a common style between all the French decorators now setting the world alight. “There’s no uniformity,” asserts design writer and curator Marion Vignal. “Each one has their own world.” Yann Le Coadic of Lecoadic Scotto nevertheless believes that a mastery of proportions and willingness to take risks are typical Gallic traits, and it’s true that there’s an audacity and abandon to much of the great work being created at present. “It’s less rigid than Americans interiors,” says editor-inchief of AD France, Marie Kalt. “Instead, there’s a sort of nonchalance, a certain lightness.” And if they are able to shake up the design world with such brio, it’s because of the license that comes with having absorbed the fundamentals of interior design from an early age. “When you accumulate so many references and knowledge, it gives you an assurance,” states Yovanovitch. “And from that comes the freedom to create something completely new.”