This is my third career change, but I’m still very much involved in all the areas that fascinate me: classic cars, watchmaking and now 20th-century decoration and furniture. There’s a clear common thread: beautiful objects, their history, and how they’re presented. My associate Clémence and I offer a wide selection of furniture and lighting from the 1940s to the 1980s at Serpette in the Saint-Ouen flea market. With a predilection for Italy in the 1970s, for example, the pair of Cornaro armchairs designed by Carlo Scarpa that we currently have on display.

I was born in Rome, and I studied art direction there. I arrived in Paris at the age of 23 and continued my career in a variety of agencies, mainly in the luxury sector. I’m now the creative director at Egon Paris, my friend Séverine Breton’s agency specialising in wine, spirits and lifestyle in general. My interests include contemporary dance, ancient and modern drawing, decorating and, of course, our dog Tobia.

It’s a family story, of course! When I was eight, I went to an auction with my father and grandfather. I was brought up with these compulsive purchases, this unbridled emotion. I was fascinated by the immediate gratification of desires. My taste is, above all, a specific interest in objects in the broadest sense, from coffee cups to huge paintings… In my case, it’s not a question of a specific taste for a particular period or medium; I like all sorts of things – whatever catches my eye. There’s no doubt about it: I’m a compulsive buyer.

My grandfather was a painter and awakened the artistic senses of almost the whole family. My grandmother, his wife, had little money but great taste. She had bought a small country house in Champagne, where I spent most of my holidays. He had to go with her to all the flea markets in the region to find bargains. In Paris, she could be found at the Saint-Pierre market. She had a real eye for decoration, colours and materials. She also taught me the basics of furniture restoration. That’s where it all started.

For me, everything changed when I moved to Paris: I went from having a very busy Italian, even Roman, taste, all 18th-century family furniture that was bordering on oppressive and absolutely everywhere, to… a furnished rented apartment! I had to find other types of furniture that were more practical, lighter and more functional. Then I met Bertrand, and I developed and refined my taste for the 20th century. Alongside him, I learnt to recognise what is beautiful and rare, pretty but more common… and I developed a more critical and attentive eye.

For me, it’s a professional skill. At the Serpette market (in the Saint-Ouen flea market, editor’s note), we regularly look for rare, or at least interesting, items that you don’t see everywhere for our customers. Of course, that’s also what we want at home… Without making it into a statement and wanting to differentiate ourselves at all costs: there are some must-haves we love, and we don’t deny ourselves what we love! And working together on this house, our tastes have evolved towards harmony rather than accumulation. We like the pieces to interact with each other, to create a more coherent atmosphere, and to be fully integrated into their surroundings.

We knew a bit about the region because we have friends locally. I also wanted to be closer to part of my family who had settled in Provence. Just for fun, I put out a fairly wide alert on property websites. This house was among the first responses I received.

It was pure chance!

It ticked all the boxes in terms of what we were ideally looking for – a house in an entirely natural environment, an architect-designed home from the 1970s, of course – absolutely my period!

We visited it one day in December, which isn’t ideal for a house in the south… But it was love at first sight! We walked through the door and immediately assumed it was ours.

Even so, we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into: the house was in its original state and very large compared to what we needed. But we were also looking for a house where we could entertain our friends and family…

It was built as a second home in 1974 by Gottfried Silberbauer, a Parisian architect. A music lover surrounded by artist friends whose works and furniture adorned the interior, he and his wife were a very sociable couple with no children. We later found out from talking to neighbours that all the youngsters in the village had learnt to swim in the pool! The house is very well designed: in harmony with its surroundings, perfectly planned from the point of view of aspect, very pleasant to live in whatever the season… First, there’s the northern entrance, with a large stone wall that is very architectural and almost inhospitable. But when you step inside, you discover that all the living areas are connected and also enjoy the panoramic view of the Luberon massif. The house is built in a terraced style, with the lower part buried to create a natural air-conditioning system: this is where we spend our summers. We haven’t touched the structure, the circulation between rooms or their layout. Every part of the old layout has been preserved: the office, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, living room, and so on. The place is very pleasant to live in and very modern: each bedroom has its own bathroom and is comfortable to spend time in every day, and the communal areas are easy to get on with.

We tried to recreate an atmosphere that was fairly faithful to what the previous owners had envisaged. One little story illustrates our approach quite well: a weaver whose name I knew through my work, Daniel Drouin, moved to the region in the 1970s after having worked at the Gobelins in Paris. He’s worked for some of the greatest names in art, including Calder. He began creating tapestries from his own cartoons in Gordes and then in Venasque. Somewhat by chance, on one of our walks in the region, we came across a sign pointing to his studio. Talking to his wife, we discovered that the previous owners had commissioned a made-to-measure tapestry for the living room. Inspired by a photograph the couple had found, we went hunting at auction and found a tapestry by Daniel Drouin from the same period in colours we liked.

We kept everything that could be kept: the old tiles that we found in the workshop and that used to extend the walls in the kitchen, the shutters on the windows still in place, the railing around the swimming pool, open to the countryside, the floor throughout the house, the fireplace… The list goes on and on. The idea is to avoid creating a contrast between “new” and “old”. On the contrary, we decided not to touch the existing structure, the spirit of the house. But just to extend, touch up and update.

For a house built in the 1970s, the choices made at the time are still very relevant today. The bathrooms, for example, are all tiled in white earthenware, whereas the colours were very bright and dated at that time. As for the rest, it all blends in. Michele is very keen on works of art, and I pick up a lot of furniture… But there are no rules.

We don’t really have a defined taste… It fluctuates. It’s a mixture: some objects have been here for a very long time, others are acquired on a whim, and sometimes pieces become part of our interior after a long period of reflection… A home comes together over time.