A Parisian hideaway high in the heart of Montmartre with joyful Japanese popular influences

Defining yourself is a bit like restricting yourself! I’m an auctioneer as well as an art and design consultant. The idea is to help private individuals, architects and professionals find objects that can be incorporated into a decorative scheme or a collection. I like to research objects, trace their history, acquire them and then pass them on. Objects are at the centre of my life. Their stories fascinate me, as does the idea of passing things on in general. I also have an inordinate love of Italy and the Madonnas: the whole Italian imprint is part of my upbringing, my culture and my taste.

You’re starting with the most difficult question! What I like is doing a bit of everything… At home, the boundaries between private and professional life are blurred. I’m constantly searching here at home for a certain aesthetic in everyday life; at work, I’m thinking about artistic direction and staging. Everything’s linked. Like shelves in the same bookcase. Johanna and I are like night and day in temperament and taste! That’s what appealed to me about her when I first met her: she completes me. My job is to work with artists, be they painters, illustrators or musicians. I try to use my cultural background to understand what they want to achieve. I make films that reflect what they would have done if they’d had the means to do it without me. I’m like the first assistant director in the film industry, who’s there every day, rolling up their sleeves so that the director can concentrate on their overall vision for the film. I have that kind of role. I try to understand other people’s visions, create a relationship of trust and take action. I’m somewhere between Art Director, producer, director and animator… My medium, broadly speaking, is animation. And music is a guiding force for me. The best music video is the one that can’t do without the music and vice versa! I’ve worked a lot with what’s known now as the French Touch, both for live productions and music videos: Etienne de Crécy, Justice, Kavinsky. Right now, I’m working quite a bit with the director, Alex Courtès. I’ve done videos for U2 and Jamiroquai with him.

I grew up in a sunny, somewhat boisterous environment! With generous people, not necessarily attached to the decor or the objects around us as such – that’s more a personal taste of mine – but in a world where the theatre was more about sharing the great meals of my region, big gatherings, Provençal Santons – nativity figures – at Christmas, fetching moss from the forest and starting to build our own nativity scene… I grew up with a single mother in a small town near Aix-en-Provence. We lived in a small apartment where anything went: we were free to invent the world we wanted. My first bedroom had a sort of four-poster bed because I was the long-awaited girl, arriving after the boys who had their own very distinct world. My mother was a bit of a maverick, not afraid of other people’s opinions and extremely assertive, and she gave me what I would call a colourful childhood. The 1990s woman in all her splendour! She was someone for whom life only made sense if it was full of people. The phone rang constantly, and there were people in and out all the time. I lived with this taste for other people and the outside world in an apartment that seemed open to the four winds. A very Provençal world, in fact. When I think about collecting now, there’s always the idea of the set, always this theatrical and deliberately dramatic dimension which has undoubtedly rubbed off on me and on the way I look at life. For me, interiors are also about creating a slightly fictional personal space in which you’re free to tell yourself whatever stories you want. My passion for cinema is undoubtedly linked to this. Auctions give you access to an infinite number of different objects. Sourcing pieces at auction, knowing that people have given love and attention to particular objects, not necessarily the most precious or prestigious ones for that matter… creating a new story, creating a story for oneself from these objects, is what I think is the most beautiful, pure way of passing things on.

I find it hard to define my childhood home and environment as precisely as Johanna. I think I grew up in a very traditional world; my parents are still together, I still had my grandmothers and a pretty strong sense of traditional family. This, here, is our family heritage: the paintings, furniture and chairs that have been handed down from house to house, family to family, for donkey’s years! Besides, I grew up 500 metres from here, so, in terms of adventure, we haven’t come all that far… I’m perhaps a tad frustrated that I’ve never experienced this, this adventure, never made the giant leap. But I was lucky enough to be in a very rich and dynamic cultural environment. My parents always had their own world, very open, so we could ask them absolutely anything. At the same time, they showed my twin brother and me total respect for our world. That’s what I’m trying to do with my children: create a climate of trust where they can speak freely. We always said what we were going to do… And we always did what we wanted. When my brother and I were seven, we used to take the Metro on our own. We had a certain degree of autonomy, and it didn’t give rise to all the discussions we have today. I’ve always lived on the Right Bank, and I went to secondary school on the Left Bank in the 15^th arrondissement. So I’ve conquered the Left Bank, too! Paris is my world.

Everything around me had a story. All my life, I’ve seen my father drink his coffee the same way, from the same insignificant little cup with a little character engraved on one side.

The Moustier factory in Provence embodies the flavour of my childhood home for me. Every house had a Moustier fruit bowl or plate. This little Moustier cross, right here in our living room, reminds me of my childhood.

Armand and I spend our days sending each other things. Auctions, online flea markets, things we’ve seen… And to add a third dimension to this question, the children are growing more curious and interested in the objects we show them and often choose them for themselves when they’re destined for their bedroom!

In my world, I’m not surrounded by people who are particularly responsive to what attracts my attention. That’s also what brought Johanna and me together.

We were immediately drawn to Japan. When I met Armand, he was already steeped in the Japanese aesthetic that still inspires him, and at the time, I had an online gallery where we’d been working for some time on the theme of Japan through the prism of folk art, which is very much in evidence here at home. We travelled to Japan together quite soon after, and that was pretty pivotal for us: we bought our first pieces together there.

I’ve never been very academic, but I’ve always enjoyed making things. Craftsmanship, whether it’s from France, Japan or Nepal, is a major art form for me. That’s just what the Japanese do! Everything is hallowed; nothing is ever simple.

The space!

It has to be said that Armand already had a little girl, Cosima, and they lived in the neighbourhood, so it was immediately obvious to me that I should join them as she was going to school nearby. We found this apartment, which was bigger than we’d expected, on this very busy shopping street, a typical Parisian thoroughfare that attracts a vast number of tourists – something that has driven us out of the city at weekends. But the apartment is very Parisian, with a lovely view over the rooftops and enough space to accommodate us all!

Paradoxically, we really liked the way the long corridor separates the living areas from the rest of the apartment. I grew up in similar apartments, laid out in that Haussmann style. We thought we’d be able to put “a few” things in it…

And then this large window in the living room, at an angle and with a view, was enough to convince us.

We need to explain the story of the letterbox.

We were off to Japan together, Johanna’s first time but not mine, so I was trying to act as a guide on the train that took us from Tokyo to Kyoto and to look for activities based around what brought us together: knick-knacks (laughs). Very fittingly, we arrived just in time for the weekend flea market that’s held in a temple every month. It was a chance to hunt for a bit of folk art. We were walking through the traditional first part of the flea market, which is worth your while wherever you are, with everything from fast fashion to kebabs, when Johanna spotted something and called out to me, but by the time I got there, an elderly man was holding the item she’d spotted, a Japanese mask that he bought before our very eyes. It reminded me of a scene from Tintin. We said to ourselves, “Never mind, it was the first stall; we’ll find some more”, and, of course, we scoured the entire flea market without finding what had become an obsession. Nevertheless, we found the boro in our bedroom (Editor’s note: “tattered” in Japanese, the term refers to a popular patchwork art made from worn indigo-dyed clothing and canvas). In the afternoon, we wandered around in search of cultural highlights and realised that one of the historic quarters adjoined the antique district, and, of course, we ventured in there… and Johanna, who’s very much into ceramics, had a look in two or three shops. She saw someone carrying a huge jar and thought it must lead to treasures, so we followed. We went into his shop, and there, in the window, was the mask we’d seen in the morning. He agreed to sell it to us, but only for cash… After goodness knows how many adventures, we arrived at the shop with the money. It was closed, as it was the next day, and the day after that, we were due to go back to Tokyo.

We postponed our return to Tokyo so as not to miss the opening of the antique shop. We got up at the crack of dawn, had a coffee across the road and waited.

The shop opened, and we finally bought the mask. The shopkeeper smiled and told us that he’d recognised us from the flea market and that it was he who’d bought the object right under our noses. He then explained that it was a painted letterbox with a face on it – and a moustache reminiscent of mine!

It’s fed – literally – through its mouth. You pull the letters out through the ear. This slightly absurd theatrical gesture really appealed to us! I’d also like to mention the Japanese theatre in the dining room bookcase, which I discovered entirely by chance. At the time, I’d picked up a ladies’ kimono catalogue. The designs and colours were superb. I thought the catalogue, the object as such, was great, and when I got it back after the auction, I realised that at the end of the book, there were two little folded leaves. And I discovered this tatebanko (editor’s note: a small Japanese theatre) revealing a three-dimensional theatre scene with some objects in relief, others stitched… It’s marvellous, a fantastic piece of work with folding, cutting and so on. That’s when you recommended the framing skills of Joëlle Russo in the 6^th arrondissement of Paris. She did a superb job of displaying this little theatre in all its glory under anti-reflective glass.

We do a lot of bargain hunting on Leboncoin: that’s where we found this sofa with its original fabric that’s like new, and since we’re in the middle of getting ready for Christmas, we’ll be doing the same for our festive table… We like to mix and match our finds to create a unique, beautiful and playful table for the occasion. And recently, I’ve been hunting down theatrical costumes, including one from Swan Lake, in Ottavio’s size… I’ve hung it in his bedroom.

At the front of houses in Japan, you’ll often find a rather fantastic ceramic animal called a tanuki, a Japanese raccoon dog that brings good luck. Miyazaki actually made a film about it, Pompoko. They have the gift of transformation, and to do this, they stretch the skin of their testicles, which allows them to transform and parachute, among other things… (laughs) it’s every man’s dream. The animal is very comical. In the country, we have a garden. We couldn’t see ourselves including a garden gnome, so of course, we thought of the tanuki…

This one’s under negotiation!

Let’s just say that I hope one day we’ll be able to own a lamp made from rice paper and have it standing on the floor.

The only thing we can’t have is a Noguchi lamp… But apart from that, the idea is also that we can pass on this passion to our children as much as possible so that they grow up handling the objects and don’t see them as sacred, quite the opposite, but as everyday items that are functional and yet reflect a unique aesthetic. We’re really instilling a love of objects in them, particularly through anthropomorphic pieces, and animals are a really fun way of getting them interested! Ottavio has always had an eye for teapots. Cosima loves setting the table because of the ritual involved. The gifts we give are the gifts that last: passing things on is always at the heart of our thinking. We like the idea that the works of art and objects we give them will take them into adulthood with a little bit of baggage, having left their mark on our family history.

When you listen to an album, there are songs you love straight away and songs you don’t like… Until four years later, when you listen to the album again, and you actually like them. In the end… with a little distance… but it doesn’t work for everything. And especially for a pair of paintings in our bedroom!

I fell in love with the paintings above our bed when I passed them several times in the window of an antique shop. They’re neither ancient nor modern; they have a slightly in-between feel, and I liked them straight away. There’s something melancholy about them – something Armand hates. A few days before my birthday, I decided to treat myself. Armand, on the other hand, fell in love with a Japanese mask that looks like an absolute monstrosity to me, whereas he felt rather inspired and at ease with the world he knows so well. It fell down one day, and I had to have the tip of its nose restored. Ever since then, I’ve loved it.

As for me, I still don’t like the pictures above the bed! I’ve always had a very emotional approach to art, and in fact, I own paintings by my father, family friends and friends of mine… This affinity with images is an immense blessing and carries a strong emotional charge. So, as far as I’m concerned, those two figures are intruders.

I’ve just delivered a fun project with a director friend for a nightclub owner in Val Thorens, who’s making his latest big splash. We covered the walls and ceiling with screens so that we could create trompe-l’œil effects and transform the space as we saw fit. It’s intended to be a quasi-psychedelic experience!

To Drouot’s auctions, of course, hunting for pieces for my customers or for us (!) and to young designers’ studios in search of the next production in collaboration with galleries like Amelie Maison d’Art, with whom I’ve worked for years.

An inspiring collection of ways of living and (joyfully) inhabiting space in the 21st century.

The carafe you’ve designed in collaboration with WawwLaTable which is like having a little jewel at your fingertips on the table; the Ciccio cushions from your new collection in satin – they’ll brighten up any sofa that’s a bit tired; and the throw with its iconic Liberty motif!

The Place du Théâtre de l’Atelier and its little cafés (Place Charles Dullin, Paris 18th), the Hôtel Particulier Montmartre (23 Av. Junot, Paris 18th) for a quiet cup of tea away from the hustle and bustle, the Librairie Vendredi bookshop (67 R. des Martyrs, Paris 9th) for marvellous advice and the unusual shop, Les Petits Mitrons (26 rue Lepic, Paris 18th), an institution when it comes to sweet and savoury tarts that you’ll never tire of, and the shoemaker Maison Mauries (22 rue Durantin, Paris 18th), a truly passionate craftsman. Then there’s Chez Ammad (18 rue Véron, Paris 18e), where you can still meet all the real Montmartre locals, and finally the Studio 28 cinema (10 rue Tholozé, Paris 18e) for its great programme and Jean Cocteau chandeliers.