The Founder of Claude Cartier Studio Dreams Up Her Own French Apartment

For centuries, Lyon, France’s third-largest city, has been famous for the sumptuous silk textiles it produces. Located in the center of the town, near where legions of artisanal looms once hummed, designer Claude Cartier’s apartment evokes the spirit of those fabled fabrics—their luscious colors, bold patterns, and rich textures—but in breezily modern form. Cartier founded her business in 1981, opening a home decorating store that soon led to extensive residential-design commissions and the establishment of her eponymous studio in 2010. Although now a qualified interior designer, Cartier still prefers to define herself as a “decorator,” and the ebullient theatricality of her apartment shows why.

Cartier Showcases Her Sense of Style Throughout the French Apartment

“Inevitably, each piece of furniture was chosen because I had an absolute crush on it,” Cartier begins, “though often it was customized.” A case in point is Jonas Wagell’s Julep sofa, its curving minimalist form dominating one corner of the living room but transformed into some sort of exotic vegetation by Métaphores’s upholstery of abstracted-floral jacquard. The botanical theme is echoed in the opposite corner, which is entirely draped with pale-green velvet curtains that conceal wall shelving and a TV. The fabric’s delicate color is picked up in the dress of the woman in an Erwin Olaf photograph, one of the many striking artworks curated by Sibille; it hangs above Gianfranco Frattini’s iconic Sesann sofa, its voluptuous contours clad in bottle-green velvet.

The living room exemplifies the audacious color palette Cartier uses throughout the apartment: “Dark hues that are a bit dramatic, like the entrance,” she says, referring to the latter’s burnt-saffron and inky-blue ceiling and walls, which set off black-and-white checkerboard tile flooring, “then mint-green pastels with watery shades, earth tones, pearly whites, finished with strong colors underlined with games of stripes.”

Bold Patterns Meld With Subtle Hues

Stripes, a recurring motif, are used with maximum impact in the main bedroom and bathroom. In the latter, they run up the walls in the form of yellow and white tiles, joining with a colorful patchwork curtain and striped-cotton toilet skirt to create a space that’s “like a beach cabin,” Cartier suggests. In the bedroom, a sunburst of broad bands of yellow and white paint explodes across the ceiling, an homage to the dazzling effect Gio Ponti created in the Villa Planchart in Caracas, Venezuela. Both rooms have the vivid immediacy associated with interiors in Provence, Andalusia, or the Mezzogiorno, a reference that’s entirely intentional. “I love the South,” she enthuses. “It was important for me to have Mediterranean accents and influences.”

Not all the furnishings are from Tacchini, of course. A multi-leg white-lacquered cabinet by Jaime Hayón is a glossy presence in the bedroom, while a black marble console from Angelo Mangiarotti’s 1971 Eros interlocking system of tables serves as a glamorous key-drop in the entry. In the second bedroom, which doubles as a study, a showstopping inlaid-oak cabinet by the Swedish studio Front is backed by a dado made of Cristina Celestino’s earth-tone Gonzaga clay tiles, another evocation of the South that Cartier so adores.

In the same room, a desk by Pietro Russo sits on a narrow rug that runs up the wall all the way to the ceiling, its bold colors—terra-cotta, rose, cream, black, white—arranged in an equally bold geometric pattern. The runner is but one in a series of eye-popping rugs that populate the residence, all of them Cartier’s design. The hand-knotted-wool collection’s irrepressible brio encapsulates the apartment’s aesthetic perfectly, as does its name: So Much Fun.

Inside Cartier’s Eclectic Abode 

claude cartier studio: fabien louvier

manifesta: art consultant

serge mouille: pendant fixture (living room)

bisson bruneel: lamp shade

Gubi: white armchair (living room), bench (dining room)

india mahdavi: vases, ashtrays (living room, bedroom)

Mutina: floor tile (entry, kitchen)

collection particulière: vases (dining room)

bulthaup: cabinetry (kitchen)

ceramica bardelli: wall tile

moroso: ball pillow (living room), chair (study)

fornace brioni: dado tile (study)

flos: lamp

petite friture: mirror (study), sconces (corridor), pendant fixture (entry)

bernard: wall tile (bathroom)

moustache: mirror

les crafties: curtain

olivades: toilet skirt fabric

MADE IN GOLD: CUSTOM WALL COVERING (ENTRY)

agapecasa: console

bd barcelona design: cabinet (bedroom)

Studiopepe: custom headboard

tacchini: furniture

métaphores: upholstery fabric, drapery fabric

cc-tapis: rugs

Ressource: paint

This London Apartment for a Famous Singer Nods to Idol, David Bowie

When a famous British singer bought a pad in a Foster + Partners multi-tower apartment complex on the banks of London’s River Thames, a duet of desires played in his mind. First, he longed to transform its undoubtedly luxurious but standard-issue interiors into one of the city’s great party spots. And second, a beloved portrait of his idol David Bowie had to take pride of place.

After a few scrolls on Instagram, he found his players: Simone Gordon and Sophie van Winden of Owl Design. The pair had met in an interior architecture course at Ravensbourne University London, rebelling against the school’s partiality toward glass-box minimalism. By 2014, a few years after graduating, they’d founded their own firm, lending their signature blend of fluid shapes and bold colors to hospitality and office projects across the country. The pandemic moved them mainly into residential spaces, freshening up homes with a touch of post-Memphis here, post-Modernism there. With Owl remixing the 2,000-square-foot three-bedroom apartment, the singer knew he’d have a hit.

Gordon and van Winden’s top-to-bottom redesign is indeed off the charts. The pair addressed the challenges of the building’s distinctive curved walls—lovely on the outside but hard to work with in the rooms themselves—with a Memphis-inflected preference for clear geometric forms. The living area walls boast built-in bookshelves that trace the curves, divided into snappy triangular compartments for the client’s collectables.

Owl did put a lot of work into the elevations of each room. “The living room walls are covered in Venetian plaster,” Gordon continues. “That was a real challenge, getting all the nooks and crannies.” Hallways are coated in high-gloss paint to amplify the abundant daylight. And the spare bedrooms boast eye-catching wallcoverings: a blue faux–grass cloth for one, and an op-art repeating pill pattern for the other (the client’s manager’s favorite place to crash).

While guests inevitably dash into the dining area to check out the blockbuster views, the true VIP spots are the hallway in which the Bowie portrait holds court and, unexpectedly, the nearby WC. Its walls are clad in sequin homages to Aladdin Sane’s famed lightning-bolt face paint, and a secreted stereo greets each partier with a timeless hit and timely exhortation to party: “Let’s Dance.”

gubi through chaplins: chaise longue (dining area)

utu soulful lighting through do shop: floor light, ceiling pendant

noom: chairs

zieta through monologue: mirror

viero: wall plaster (living area)

maman rugs: custom rug

amy somerville: sofa fabric

through jane richards interiors: armchair

the conran shop: side table

massproductions through clippings: coffee table

doozie light studio: chandelier

Sella Concept: stools (kitchen)

shimmerwalls: custom wallcovering (wc)

mirror balls: mirror ball

phillip jeffries: wallpaper (guest bedroom)

Jonathan Adler: cushions

holloways of ludlow: table lamp

&tradition through clippings: side table

warwick: sofa fabric (snug)

hung up: custom cushions

gp & j baker: cushion fabric

cto lighting: wall light

the conran shop: side table

Arte: wallpaper (second guest bedroom)

warwick, kirkby design, larsen: headboard fabrics/bed upholstery

natural bed company: side table

oyoy: lamp

moustache through nunido: chair

lydia hardwick: vase

craft gallery: framed print

hung up: curtain fabrication (primary bedroom)

métaphores: curtain fabric

warwick, nobilis, dedar: headboard fabrics

utu soulful lighting through do shop: wall light

Arte: wallcovering

carpenter & carpenter: custom bedside table

forbo flooring systems: custom flooring

hux: custom millwork (living room, snug); custom table (dining room)

the cotswold bed company: custom beds (bedrooms)

fixup: general contractor