The inspiration
Designed and built in the late 1920s, Eileen Gray’s groundbreaking Villa E-1027 found inspiration in its location, perching above the Bay of Monaco on the Côte d’Azur. As well as the building itself, Gray designed the furniture, lamps and decorative finishes in the house, which looks like a ship about to set sail. The nautical theme is subtly referenced through cream and blue tones, which are lifted by dashes of yellow ranging from soft butter to deep ochre. A diverse palette of textures enhances the sense of calm and intimacy that Gray created in this very personal expression of her design philosophy – ultimate proof that modernism needn’t be cold or austere, but full of warmth and humanity.
The palette
1 ‘Painterly Windowpane’ fabric in ‘Blue 180292’ by Miles Redd, £118 per m, Schumacher (fschumacher.co.uk)
2 ‘Loden’ fabric in ‘Cobalt’, £55 per m,
Designers Guild (designersguild.com)
3 ‘Contour’ fabric in ‘Pelican’, £175 per m,
Custhom (custhom.co.uk)
4 ‘Leon’ fabric in ‘Honey’ from the ‘Ezra’ collection, £45.84 per m, Prestigious Textiles (prestigious.co.uk)
5 ‘Horizon Capriccio’ fabric in ‘Mediterranean’, £47.82 per m, Sunbrella (sunbrella.com)
6 ‘Buxkin Original’ recycled-leather wallcovering in ‘Caramel’, £185 per sq m, Buxkin (buxkin.com)
7 ‘413 White Ciment’ porcelain, £600 per sq m, Caesarstone (caesarstone.co.uk)
8 ‘Motown’ fabric in ‘Ivory/Stone’ by Margo Selby, £82 per m, Osborne & Little (osborneandlittle.com)
9 ‘Daze’ wallcovering in ‘Birch W634/02’, £69.50 per roll, Villa Nova (villanova.co.uk)
10 ‘Printemps’ woven piping in ‘Mykonos Blue’, £29 per m, Samuel & Sons (samuelandsons.com)
11 ‘Moulay’ tile in ‘Pumice’, £59.28 per sq m, Claybrook (claybrookstudio.co.uk)
12 ‘Bengali Tonic’ fabric in ‘Blue P062’,
£54.57 per m, Sunbrella (sunbrella.com)
13 ‘Hyde Park’ fabric in ‘10934-185’,
£148 per m, Zimmer + Rohde, (zimmer-rohde.com)
14 ‘Espira Corka’ flooring, £58 per sq m,
Colour Flooring (colourflooring.co.uk)
15 ‘Arda’ fabric in ‘Cream’ by Front,
£146 per m, Kvadrat (kvadrat.dk)
16 ‘Loop Loop’ bouclette fabric in
‘Col 5 Bounty’, £129 per m, Dedar (dedar.com)