French Interiors

Christiane de Nicolay-Mazery, a specialist in furniture and antiques at Christies and Honelon, invites her readers to enter the elegantly luxurious interiors of some of France's most exclusive abodes. From the classic taste of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the creativity of the nineteenth century, she traces the path to the finesse of the twentieth century, which combines tradition and modernity. The interiors portrayed in these nine exquisitely illustrated chapters pay tribute to the refinement of French taste, a savoir-faire that has been continually renewed. Classic hôtels particuliers in the heart of Paris and romantic châteaux, as well as a surprising isba--a traditional rural log house in the Russian style--are but a few of the examples of the kinds of interiors that will inspire readers as they marvel over the art of French designers, including Madeleine Castaing, Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Jacques Grange, François Joseph Graff, and Pierre Bergé. Unlike most books on French style on the market, this book is not only a testimony to timeless French elegance, it is an invitation to discover a synthesis of contemporary and classic décor, in some of France's most exclusive residences, firsthand.

At home with modern French families . . . Si Mazouz, curator of the popular blog FRENCHBYDESIGN, introduces a dozen sophisticated French families in her debut book, How the French Live to engage and inspire. Si shares each family’s personality and values through the lens of their uniquely styled homes. The aesthetic is clean and unpretentious; décor elements are eclectic—reflecting each family's Frenchness regardless of where they live. Each chapter closes with a family recipe to prolong the warmth of the hospitality they've shared. This is the new paragon of a generation living the French lifestyle in France, Morocco, and the U.S. Si Mazouz is a French girl expatriated in San Francisco. She is the curator of the FRENCHBYDESIGN blog, where she compiles daily a selection of interiors, house tours, or DIY projects. She is also a strategic marketing and social media consultant.

Combining bucolic charm and modern elegance, this new collection of French country interiors provides boundless inspiration for interior design enthusiasts and home decoration aficionados. This charming volume features a dozen interiors which bring together vintage and modern styles, for the ultimate in French country interiors. The homes represent a diverse range of possibilities for interior style, from the clean white lines and open floor plan of a barn converted into a modern loft to a traditional family home filled with antique pieces and Provençal prints. Each photograph features details that will inspire the home enthusiast. Make a bold design statement through curated collections of objects: pastel-hued bar spritzers, naïve paintings, or jewel-toned vases look best when grouped together. Display seashells in a bell-shaped glass cloche. Create a unique wall display of antique gardening tools. Use vintage striped kitchen towels to add nautical flair, especially when offset by weathered oars propped against the wall. Taking their cue from the surrounding nature, these country homes feature earthy tones and give pride of place to natural materials, from smooth stone or terra-cotta tile floors to striking wooden beams or wind-beaten shutters. Sébastien Siraudeau takes the reader on a voyage around France replete with bucolic charm, providing an indispensable source of inspiration for modern living and country style à la française.

While modern design often neglects cultural and artistic heritage in favor of minimalism, Siraudeau demonstrates that it isn’t necessary to forgo tradition to create a fashionable home. With his eye for idiosyncratic details, Siraudeau has an exceptional flair for finding homes characterized with vintage style, where antique objects invoke nostalgia and time-tested quality. French writer and musician Boris Vian declared, “Any object can be an objet d’art once put in a frame,” and that innovative spirit shines through in the one hundred properties featured here. From 1960s mannequins to antique books to a salvaged Parisian streetlamp, any kind of paraphernalia can define and enrich the personality of a home by giving it a history. Styles and periods don’t need to match because French design is about integrating the unexpected alongside unconventional details to make a modern home unique. The reader is guided through some of the most remarkable locations in France, each abounding with features that characterize the unique French flair for home decorating. From delightful rural guesthouses, exquisite townhomes, and charming seaside retreats to the best of France’s antique shops, Siraudeau reveals how an extraordinarily diverse range of ambiences can be achieved by integrating the simplest of decorative touches. His ideas and advice are astute to contemporary comforts and the practicalities of modern living, and his exquisite photos, flooded with the soft light of a French summer, make this an invaluable volume for admirers of French style.

The first book dedicated to Henri Samuel, considered one of the best French interior designers of the twentieth century and acclaimed for his mastery of historical design, as well as his eye for contemporary presentation and furnishings—a high-point addition to Rizzoli’s continuing coverage of the masters of the field. Design legend Henri Samuel believed that a successful interior was one in which an observer never suspected that a decorator had been involved. This book takes the reader inside some of Samuel’s groundbreaking and inspiring interiors, beginning with his first job assisting Stéphane Boudin of Jansen in the 1920s through postwar Paris society and into the go-go ’80s. During his illustrious career, Samuel created rarefied and beautiful environments for his jet-set clientele—Doris Duke, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, Susan and John Gutfreund, Valentino Garavani, and multiple Rothschilds and Vanderbilts. Such was his expertise that museums such as Versailles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art consulted him on the installation of period rooms. Samuel was a master at reproducing intimate spaces in various historic styles in addition to mixing those styles in an erudite way: modernist paintings were installed over Empire consoles, Louis XIII furniture shared space with Oriental objects, neoclassical chairs were placed beside tables of brass and Plexiglas. This book records Samuel’s life, his career, and the luxurious interiors he created for his clients and himself—rooms that look as fresh and alive today as they did when they were first arranged. It is a necessary addition to any design library.

Bursting with color and dramatic focal points, these exceptional interiors offer exclusive access into the homes of Paris’s finest art and antiques aficionados. The magic of Paris is distinctly captured in its interiors: windows are tall, and rooms have high ceilings with grand architectural details; but the real charm comes in the thoughtfully selected elements that bring those spaces to life. Paris is rife with antique collectors, art historians, architects, and interior designers who dedicate their lives to the contemplation of each element that goes into the ideal interior. Barbara and René Stoeltie invite us inside the private oases of twenty of the city’s celebrated interiors gurus, capturing in vivid photographs these havens of perfection, brimming with inspiration for the home. While each interior is distinctly unique, they all draw from a rich historical tradition of decorative arts combined with an instinctive desire to reinvent itself, mixing the best elements from different epochs with contemporary art, bold colors, or surprising pattern combinations. A foreword from Jacques Garcia, with his gracious nod to the great Madeleine Castaing, opens this handsome volume.

Designing the French Interior traces France's central role in the development of the modern domestic interior, from the pre-revolutionary period to the 1970s, and addresses the importance of various media, including drawings, prints, pattern books, illustrated magazines, department store catalogs, photographs, guidebooks, and films, in representing and promoting French interior design to a wider audience. Contributors to this original volume identify and historicize the singularity of the modern French domestic interior as a generator of reproducible images, a site for display of both highly crafted and mass-produced objects, and the direct result of widely-circulated imagery in its own right. This important volume enables an invaluable new understanding of the relationship between architecture, interior spaces, material cultures, mass media and modernity.