In Paris, the eclectic family apartment of the founder and artistic director of The Socialite Family

I grew up between Paris and Milan. After Lübeck and Janson de Sailly, I studied art history and then law at the Sorbonne in the hope of passing the auctioneer's exam. But as chance would have it, I joined Milk magazine, which had just been created, before working at the Ouvriers du Paradis agency, which was enjoying a golden age in the 1990s and was really the origin of this spirit of the Rive Gauche woman for Le Bon Marché! After that, I became an art buyer in advertising. I had to find the right photographer for the right project and suggest a signature style to the client. But, I had trouble fitting into the advertising agency mould. Personally, I like accidents...

I sent out my first The Socialite Family newsletter - I usually say Socialite, to save time - on a Friday the 13th, in 2013, at a time in my life when I was ready to set up my own business. At the time, blogs were all the rage. They were an easy way to show off your tastes, and they had the advantage of revealing a lot of hidden talent to the world! I used this format to show the interiors of my friends' homes and what I considered to be a new generation of family life. I took advantage of the time I was on unemployment benefit to set up the site.

I wanted to focus on today's families: those who have children later in life - and who generally have more money, too. I started with my friends, who had a very urban lifestyle. With parents who work, who travel with their children, and who often live more closely with them than previous generations. They're people who have developed their taste over time and have very strong personalities that are reflected in their interiors. Unfortunately, decorating is always a compromise. You can't choose everything you have in your home on your own (laughs). Nor is the idea to wrap the apartment or house in cotton wool because the children are too young or energetic. On the contrary, we need to teach them! At home, we were always brought up with beautiful things around us. And anyway, objects and furniture live on, so it doesn't matter. That was also what The Socialite Family was all about in the early days: showing real life, with a bit of clutter and mixtures of everyday furniture and more precious items, not perfect interiors, although yes, there is an attempt.

At first, I had a friend translate the site for me. I asked a young designer Jeff Paff to create a mock-up for me. I went to see a local developer who looked at me quizzically as if to say that it was never going to work! I was pregnant with Brune, and we worked from his cellar. I needed to see everything and supervise everything down to the last detail. I always had my idea firmly in my mind. I used to send out newsletters every three weeks, which corresponded to many families photographed by photographers who, at first, agreed to work on a quid pro quo basis... Often, it was fashion photographers, and I offered to invest a little in their decor because I was interested in their eye for the subject.

My mother is quite a character. Quite strict in the way the four of us were brought up, but somehow a bit folkloric, very cheeky and, above all, very elegant, with a crazy culture. She took me everywhere with her. We grew up with two Italian greyhounds amongst all her finds - she used to go bargain-hunting a lot and still goes to the Drouot auction house every day, and to the Puces de Saint-Ouen very frequently. She is very curious and has always been incredibly resourceful, even if she is a big spender. Our home was like a doll's house, all decorated and upholstered and stuffed with artworks and other objects on two floors in the 16ᵉ arrondissement. My mother drank only from crystal glasses and only ever had silver on the table. While she was listening to the Doors.

Maybe that's the Italian side of things... My father was just the opposite: a minimal interior where not too much money was spent - that didn't interest him. Instead, it was my Italian friends who opened the doors to some fine family properties for me.

It is constantly evolving. Through my upbringing, I inherited a love for the 18th century (hence the love of tapestries!) and more broadly for a classic, bourgeois style. But also a passion for colours, as well as a more radical and modern tendency, likely stemming from my Italian roots. I love the clash of cultures, the blend of eras and styles. It's like with clothing: I almost exclusively love vintage pieces, pairing thrift shop finds—of which I’m obsessive—with some beautiful classic vintage items from major fashion houses, or occasionally, a pair of modern shoes or an accessory. I recently travelled to the United States where, for example, I became fixated on both old and contemporary cowboy boots!

The grey polished concrete floor! I've just kept it in the kitchen. I wanted to use white tiles, but in the end, I thought it would be too clinical.

This is an industrial building dating from the 1930s, a former textile factory. Laurent Buttazzoni had already designed the interior of the apartment for the previous owners. We haven't touched the layout of the space. We simply regained a room when Leonardo was born. The rest is just decoration.

I really wanted something much softer. Carpets throughout and a very 1970s/80s atmosphere where you feel like lounging on the floor, creating several nooks and crannies in the rooms, particularly in the living room, which is very large. There are more colours than before, but I also wanted to streamline: fewer pieces, just beautiful things, nothing lying around. I love the fact that I have nothing on my coffee tables any more. It's so refreshing; it feels so good! When the eye rests, it's on a pretty lamp or a beautiful painting, full stop. I've created an extension of the bookshelves for books and magazines because we have lots that we've been using for a long time. We accumulate them, and I draw inspiration from them for my work. I really like the Rotondo modular sofa from our brand. The leopard-print fabric works particularly well against the ochre of the carpet. And then, with the children and the dog, it's practical. You can move it about and put it back, and it doesn't show the dirt too much. In the corridor, I've installed a Versailles parquet floor that I found and put it back, and it doesn't show the dirt too much. In the corridor, I've installed a Versailles parquet floor that I found— — at my mother's! Years ago, she passed by a town house that was being renovated. She saw the parquet floor ripped out, cried out that it was a crime, and salvaged it for her home in the Perche countryside. We laid it here at home this year, block by block, filling in the gaps with new ones. Then we sanded, waxed and varnished the whole thing. We've also transformed the enclosed, windowless room adjoining the living room, which we use as a TV room, games room and library. For our highly successful La Scopa exhibition last winter, we took over a mansion in the middle of Paris that was due for demolition. We showed our The Socialite Family collections, and I took the fabrics we had hung on the walls and created this draped box-like effect. After our show, I then acquired a few paintings by an artist I discovered thanks to The Curators, Renske Linders , like this pair of buttocks in my office! In the evening, I turn on our little Tubo lamp, which lights it up beautifully.