Design Integrity
The power of publicity
“I think the people select you because they recognize something of themselves in you. If people don't understand what you're doing, they don't select you. It's like a love, no? I don't feel like an icon myself, I don't run around like a diva . . . I hope!” — Jacques Grange
There are an extraordinary number of interior design studios, catering to every aesthetic inclination; from vulgar “PrimeResi” excess, of the sort most famously pedalled by Nick and Christian Candy, to traditional English pastiche, artfully arranged mid-century minimal and everything in-between. For years there has been a glut of international clients buying multiple homes and redecorating with such alarming voracity that as kitchens and bathrooms were gutted and refitted — at the whim of every new owner, many of whom would never even set foot in the finished project — marble quarries were quite literally bled dry of those stones considered most desirable (rather predictably, Calacatta Oro, the choice of emperors, was that most requested by Oligarchs and foreign investors alike). A good many of these interiors are, quite frankly, appalling, carried out with no design knowledge, understanding of scale and proportion or seemingly any desire to create lasting interiors. Panelling consists of laser-cut MDF, sprayed flat, mat hues, architraves are off the shelf and the furnishings “nine point” knock-offs of original works by renowned designers. This was, by and large, the same across the board, both residential and commercial. For years now, property prices in Chelsea, Mayfair and similarly desirable London postcodes, have increased with such rapidity that any developer who employed the tried and tested template of white walls, marble bathrooms and parquet floors would be sure to make a sizeable profit. This resulted in a lot of truly awful interiors, badly planned, fitted and devoid of any real design intent. Following years of economic and political crises, most recently Brexit, and the Coronavirus pandemic, the market is changing. Prices have largely plateaued and the days of enormous profits and property hopping have passed; homeowners want a refuge, something unique they can call their own. This will hopefully result in designers taking more care, using experienced craftsman, and delivering interiors with integrity that are built to last.
The home of Terry de Gunzburg, Manhattan, designed by Jacques Grange, Picasso’s “Buste de Femme” (1955) hangs over the fireplace, photograph by François Halard
An elegant library in a Manhattan apartment designed by New York based interior decorator Alyssa Kapito, image c/o Alyssa Kapito
Of course, the term “interior designer” (coined in the 1930’s, by Interior Design and Decoration magazine) encompasses a broad spectrum of talent and experience; at one end of the scale there are those home-counties stylists, who pick furniture from catalogues, choose paint colours and fabric swatches, but make no real architectural intervention, and at the other end, there are those who can take a house back to its shell, re-plan, re-configure and design every small detail, from architraves to window profiles and even door handles, carefully sourcing and commissioning every piece of furniture. In the latter category are designers like Jacques Grange (b. 1944) and Pierre Yovanovitch (b. 1965) whose projects, intelligent and considered, are often deceptively simple; the overall result so seamless and harmonic that the scale and extent of the work involved is often not immediately apparent. The very best interior designers are able to create an atmosphere, an overall feeling of coherence and unity, that certain special something that is in actuality artistry. It comes from an inherent sense of colour, scale and proportion, but also from a learned understanding of design, the nuances of period and stylistic details, and how to manipulate them so as to achieve a contemporary interior whilst loosing none of their charm and subtlety. Studio Peregalli are a firm that have a unique appreciation of design history, and understand not only the minutiae of how historic interiors grow and evolve over centuries, but of the generations of occupants who resided within them, and their accompanying social quirks and eccentricities, that allow them to create magic; rooms that look as if they have been built upon organically over time, with such a strong sense of place it’s somehow hard to believe they’re newly created. One of the keys to such warm, eclectic interiors is the use of experienced craftsman, who produce finishes and furnishings by hand. The charm is where the touch of the artisan is visible, whether that be a bush stroke, or those slight imperfections, that whilst not immediately perceptible, add to the overall quality and character of the space. In the words of Grange, “Il faut une faute de goût pour réussir une decoration” (you need an error in taste to make a decoration succeed). “Otherwise it’s too sterilized, too perfect.”
Bathroom designed by Studio Peregalli's in a Tel Aviv penthouse, photograph by Roberto Peregalli
Paris apartment designed by Fabrizio Casiraghi, who devised an abstract Ellsworth Kelly-inspired artwork for the ceiling of the entry hall, photograph by Cerruti Draime
Then, there are those interior designers good at spin, with a successful PR team behind them and a healthy relationship with the media. Their projects are few and far between — often their own apartment and a favor for a friend — yet, they’re courted by magazines, included in lists of the “top names in interior decoration” and will inevitably have a healthy media presence and Instagram following. In the same way as fashion, publicists are pushing mediocre figures, who are, at best, decorators, at worst set dressers, as a means of filling column inches with “what’s hot and what’s not” in the world of interior design. This creates a somewhat bizarre situation in which interiors are, effectively, being designed so as to be “Instagrammable” spaces. Bereft of any real integrity, it seems that interiors publications are increasingly dedicated to promoting and praising packages created by a marketing department rather than genuine talent.
Of course, that’s not to say Instagram is necessary a bad thing; before the advent of social media, developing a client base was a slow and laborious process. There was a strict hierarchy in which trends came from the top down, with the likes of Madeleine Castaing (1984-1982), David Hicks (1929-1998) and Francois Catroux patronized by editors at Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar. Instagram has played a pivotal role in levelling the playing field for a generation of young designers and dealers; gaining likes and hitting the popular explore page might open up a world of potential clients whom, in the ordinary course of events, they might never encounter. The danger of designing for Instagram is aesthetic homogeneity, whereby designers are either lured towards the same eye-catching kitsch, or they design with a view to creating interiors in the style of those that achieve the most likes. It seems a good many published interiors are essentially an amalgam of the work of designers Vincent Van Duysen (b. 1962), Rose Uniacke (b. 1964) and Axel Vervoordt (b. 1947); all of whom have a strong Instagram presence and who are frequently used as hashtags to promote the content of interior design blogs, regardless of relevance. The desire for recognition is nothing new, and before the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, and social media circus, designers like Jean-Michel Frank (1895–1941) and Jean Royère created eye-catching, controversial interiors that were extensively published in the likes of Art et Industrie, Le Décor d'Aujourd’hui and Vogue. The difference is that publicity was not the be-all and end-all; the focus was on creating refined, beautifully crafted interiors with the client in mind.
Another pit fall, seems to be the popularity of mid-century design, which is on the up and up, with furniture from likes of Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999), Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967) and Mathieu Matégot (1910-2001) becoming ever more desirable. It seems a sure fire trick for “tick box” fashionable interiors is to include a Perriand rush chair, or Prouvé day bed; with the result that these classic design pieces risk over-saturation (Already H&M home are producing pieces heavily inspired by Jeanneret’s designs for Chandigarh). By no means is this to say that such pieces can’t be employed to great effect; New York designer Alyssa Kapito (b. 1986) for example, has an excellent understanding of how to combine different styles and periods so as to create interiors that are effortlessly elegant and unmistakably modern. In her recently published Rockleigh project, for example, in an oak panelled room (evocative of the simple, clean lines of Jean-Michel Frank) she employs a Jeanneret Pigeon Hole desk and “Office” chair to great effect. The ease with which Kapito mixes styles and periods is testament to her understanding of design history and a genuine talent for proportion and scale.
Similarly, through an often unexpected combination of colour and pattern, Paris based designer Fabrizio Casiraghi (b. 1986) is able to conjure all the Italian magic of a Paolo Sorrentino film. Whilst he denies having any particular signature style, “If I had a style now, at age 33, what would I do at 50?” he told Architectural Digest, I would suggest his “paw”, as the French put it, is an innate ability to create a sense of an interior that has evolved over time, with warmth and a human spirit. Casiraghi uses design classics as a means of contributing to an overall narrative; as with Kapito these pieces are not employed for fashions sake, they are means to an end of achieving the desired schematic intent. Conversely, dotting mid-century classics, gallery style, around a white shell does constitute interior design; and in any event, it’s been done better, in the past, by those great dealers — the likes of Jacques Lacoste, Alan Grizot, Patrick Seguin, Félix Marcilhac et al — who first rediscovered these designers in the seventies and eighties when everyone else had lost interest.
There are enough designers that the media should focus its interests on those that are genuine talents, and not merely on the promotion of celebrity interiors and those Instagram designers and dealers that have no real skill other than the ability to style editorially friendly stage sets. To become a great interior designer takes time, experience and a true understanding of art and design history, architecture and space. For much of the twentieth century, interiors trends were measured in decades; now, they seem change with the seasons. In order to keep up with an insatiable desire for “newness”, real talent is often overlooked in favour of designs that are merely eye-catching and editorial. “Now everybody sees good design, everybody formulates an opinion,” Brittney Hart, co-founder and principal of New York-based practice Husband Wife, said at the Dezeen Awards, “everyone thinks about what their work looks like photographed and everyone thinks about what the Instagrammable moment is in their work.” Whilst true originality is hard to come by, we should champion those with real talent, who take the lessons of the past and build on them to create contemporary interiors with atmosphere and integrity. For those design publications who annually compile lists of the world’s greatest interior designers, surely talent and invention should trump shallow publicity-driven, intellectually barren “design-light”.
Ben Weaver