Getting Dressed: Alidad Mahloudji
Brigid Keenan
The interior designer Alidad is so well known in his field that he doesn’t need a surname. For the record, it is Mahloudji.
He is master of the sumptuous interior, blending East and West in glorious ways. The late Min Hogg, founder of World of Interiors magazine, called him a ‘magician’. She was among the first to ‘discover’ him, back in the early ’80s, at an exhibition of British Interiors for which he had designed his first room.
He says, ‘It was a time of chintz and frills and bows, and my room was red and gold and the most masculine thing you’d ever seen. This wasn’t deliberate; it was just what I was doing in my own flat.’
His flat subsequently appeared over 12 pages in World of Interiors, and he was well and truly launched.
Alidad, now 66, was born in Tehran. When his industrialist father developed chronic asthma, doctors advised the family to move to Switzerland, where they lived for a year – until his father decided to move to London.
By then, Alidad was 16. ‘It was the worst possible time for someone of my age… I didn’t speak English, I was trying to do O levels when all the others were doing A levels. I couldn’t do anything that involved writing much English. So I did mathematics, statistics and computer science and then, like a good boy, got a degree at London University, even though by now I hated science and wanted to do something more arty.’
His parents agreed to let him enrol in an art course run by Sotheby’s auction house for
Jacket by Dschulnigg, trousers by Hackett, tie by Brooks Bros, shoes by George Cleverley 18- to 22-year-olds. When it ended, he was one of a handful of students offered a job. He worked at Sotheby’s for eight years, becoming their youngest-ever departmental director for Islamic art and antique textiles. He says, ‘It was wonderful! My eye was being trained every day – it gave me a whole different world to live in. But then I wanted to do something on my own and earn some money because Sotheby’s paid a ridiculously low salary.’ His first idea was to furnish his flat and offer everything for sale. ‘But when people came in and said, “I like that picture – how much is it?” or “I love that commode – how much is that?” I thought, “Oh, no! I can’t sell that.” It was a hopeless idea.’ Instead he became a designer. ‘I was good at putting things together and had a great grounding in Islamic art and textiles and, strangely, having no specific ‘design’ training helped enormously because I was ignorant in a way that allowed me to dare to do my own thing, without worrying.’ Over the past decades, Alidad has worked his magic for royalty, oligarchs and billionaires. Alidad: The Timeless Home (by Min Hogg, Sarah Stewart-smith and James Mcdonald) shows some of the beautiful places he has created around the world. In Britain, he is particularly proud of his meticulous restoration of the Burne-jones room at Buscot Park in Faringdon, Oxfordshire (National Trust).
His projects are always flamboyant, but Alidad himself was brought up ‘conservatively’, dressed in navy or grey – until, in London, aged 17, he rebelled and splurged out on bright yellow and shoes with high heels. His mother never said a word – she even shopped with him – and quite soon he grew bored and reverted to classic colours and conventional suits.
Then everything changed again. Alidad has always been a fan of the annual Salzburg Festival and found himself buying two or three Austrian jackets in different fabrics on every visit.
‘I love them and my whole wardrobe is Austrian now. I keep my clothes in a walk-in cupboard, which I have to go into sideways now because it is so packed. I tend to choose three things and wear them to death – and then another three.
‘I don’t really buy much these days, but if I pass a shoe shop, I have to freeze myself because I love good shoes. I always wear a tie – it is just a discipline I have – and my hair is cut by Kian Chabokki in a simple barber’s shop (www.scissorsandguys.com) near my office in Chelsea. He just happens to be from Iran!
‘When I was young, I was incredibly slim – but I put on weight. So when lockdown came, I thought, it is now or never – I can put on 10 kilos or lose them. I lost them by just eating less.’