DE S IGN CENTRE
jewellery
She has done the same for Cartier, weaving the brand’s DNA through each showroom,
while also connecting it to its specific location. The Cartier Mansion in New York, for example, features a vast fireplace surround by American ceramic artist Peter Lane and a stair carpet woven with the brand’s signature prowling panther. At the recently opened Hotel Hana, Gonzalez’
context-driven approach has resulted in a rare and beautiful interior she describes as Japanese maximalism. “This is the Japanese quarter of Paris,” she explains, “but it is also the art nouveau area, so we combined the two. The masterpiece of the whole project is the artwork in the bar – it’s a mix of Japanese calligraphy, metallisation, and lacquer made using a new technique we developed with the workshop, Atelier Roma.” Hospitality and retail projects may make up the majority of Gonzalez’ portfolio, but the idea of home
is central to her work. Commissioned in 2020 to make over Paris’ neoclassical Saint James hotel, Gonzalez says she created “a place that gave the sense of having been lived in – one that was marked by a patina of time.” The interior is rich and high spirited, bejewelled with delicious detail. Finds such as neo-classical busts and flea market engravings juxtapose against bespoke
“I CREATE INTERIORS WITH SOUL, LIFE AND JOY”
murals and handwoven carpets; extravagant Murano chandeliers hang from the ceiling and Iksel’s fantastical panoramic wallpapers wrap many of the walls – ‘Wisteria in Landscape’ in the bedrooms, ‘Kubilai’s Tent’ in the lounge and the chinoiserie ‘Imperial Garden’ in the restaurant.
Her showrooms in Paris and the Normandy village
of Mainneville are also more family home than gallery. At Mainneville, a late-19th-century country house she bought as a place to display her furniture collection, clients are invited to stay for the weekend and experience the art of living Gonzalez style – they can potter in the vegetable garden (which is how she unwinds in a rare hour to herself ), or while away a morning in the living room, curled up on her Nobilis velvet upholstered ‘Colosseo’ armchair. Asked to describe her style, Gonzalez leans back in
her chair (which sports a vibrant pattern of painterly splodges). “I have an eccentricity and way of using pattern that I think is very English,” she says, “and I am a passionate Mediterranean – that mix makes my style. Design is about the feeling people have when they come into a space and when people arrive in my spaces they feel at home because I create interiors with soul, life and joy.”
ABOVE: Playful and unexpected juxtapositions are a Gonzalez hallmark: in her country home, a mid-20th-century wingback chair has been upholstered in cosy shearling, while the adjacent ‘Colosseo’ chair (designed by Gonzalez) is upholstered in a velvet by Nobilis. The animal-head reliefs by Laurent Dufour have been designed to align with the ceramic wall tiles. OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Iksel Decorative Arts’ ‘Wisteria in Landscape’ wallcovering glimpsed on the bedroom walls in one of the suites at Paris’ Saint James hotel; Cartier in Madrid, which features a parrot bas-relief inspired by a piece of Cartier jewellery; Le Manach’s giraffe-motif ‘Ismaelia’ fabric, in two scales, clads the walls in one of the bedrooms at Gonzalez’s home
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