Paris Déco Off 2025
In honour of the 2025 edition of Paris Déco Off, de Gournay presents a collection of hand-painted wallpapers and hand-embroidered fabrics that pays homage to the avant-garde visionary Paul Poiret (1879-1944). Haute couture designer and interior decorator, Poiret was a true polymath, deftly crossing mediums and applying his singular artistry to everything from clothing to textiles to furniture to perfume and cosmetics. With the inauguration of La Maison Martine in 1911, the decorative arts side of the House of Poiret, he was the first couturier to blur the lines between fashion and interior design, effectively creating the concept of a lifestyle brand.
Named after La Maison Martine, Poiret’s Parisian interior design shop that opened on rue du Faubourg St. Honoré in 1911, the de Gournay apartment has been dramatically transformed into a decadent private salon that immerses guests into the eclectic, multi-faceted world of his oeuvre. Enveloped in tarnished metallics, the first room is a sumptuous ode to the Art Deco era, with curling tendrils of stylised ferns and flowers forming the backdrop to an atmospheric lounge.
The wallpaper, ‘Martine’ is inspired by Poiret’s distinctive design for stained-glass windows at La Maison Martine. To achieve the appearance of the thick leaded outlines characteristic of stained-glass, the design is rendered in our three-dimensional bas relief technique and then antiqued to a dark pewter finish.
In striking contrast, the adjoining room, swathed in a vivid aqua wool sateen bearing the exuberant ‘Zaza’ hand-embroidery, pulses with bold colour and energetic pattern. Taking inspiration from the drawing room on one of the barges devised by La Maison Martine for the 1925 International Exposition in Paris, the salon channels Poiret’s adherence to the Wiener Werkstätte philosophy of interiors as ‘total works of art’. No surface within the room has been left untouched - the hand-knotted carpet, the hand-painted lampshades and floral silk cushions, even the furniture have all been designed and fully realised by de Gournay in an all-encompassing, vibrantly-decorative vision.
An enchanting tropical scene of oversized palms leaves, cascading vines, and bell-shaped flowers, ‘Prou’ looks to the wood marquetry panelling installed on the Orient Express in the 1920s by Art Deco-era designer René Prou. Offset against a striking dark brown-painted ground, the wallpaper is rendered by hand in a flat, simplified painting style to evoke the inlay patterning.
The intricate works of richly patterned stone that enraptured the Florentine courts of the 16th- and 17th-centuries inspires an arresting hand-painted interpretation of pietra dura, evoking the exquisite beauty of painstakingly composed inlaid marble. Arrayed across the wall within an irregular grid of square and rectangular vignettes against a striking Pitch dyed silk ground, brightly plumed birds and bouquets of lush blooms conjure a verdant vision of the natural world in striking stasis.
Among Art Deco designer Jean Dunand’s artistic achievements, his works in dinanderie, or metalwork using hammered copper, brass, and bronze, are among his most renowned. In ‘Dunand’, we pay homage to his innovative vase and furniture designs with the geometric shapes and strong angles painted and gilded by hand upon a Deep Rich Gold gilded silk. Layers of antique washes lend depth and a tarnished patina to the design, imitating the natural oxidisation of his original metal pieces.
Enclosed within a trompe l’oeil conservatory recalling the frescoed Summer Room at Villa Maltifano in Palermo, a dramatic vista of a lush Mediterranean landscape unfolds behind decorative metal framing laden with blooming jasmine. Hand-painted on a scenic paper, a profusion of towering yucca, cactus, fan palms, aloes, and Roman pine is set against a pale blue sky speckled with clouds that has been gently antiqued to add a textured haziness.