For a long time, the very chic rue Las Cases, in the 7e arrondissement of Paris, was the domain of Charlotte Perriand. The designer lived there under the roofs of an opulent building and worked opposite, in a studio lost in the greenery. The year of her death, in 1999, arrived in the same street the interior designer India Mahdavi, as exuberant as her elder was minimalist. Change of century and decor. Perriand liked to create in backyards and rooftop terraces. Mahdavi, 61, displays his colors, his fantasy and his success.
Showroom, project room, design studio, boutique, the India logo in fluorescent neon announces the color in the windows. At number 3 on the street, in the showroom, wealthy customers order a Charlotte armchair, pink like the strawberry cake seen at Sketch, a fashionable London restaurant that she redesigned. Or a pistachio green sofa designed for Ladurée pastries in Geneva or Tokyo. At number 5, it’s the hive, the studio filled with prototypes of shimmering furniture, with around twenty employees who take great care of the boss. At number 19, in the shop, customers are looking for a cushion or a ceramic that reminds them of the Hôtel du Cloître, in Arles, renovated in a chic “gardian” spirit by India Mahdavi.
Every morning, as the furniture craftsmen of the suburbs used to do, a saleswoman sets up on the sidewalk chairs made of multicolored plastic threads or a stool, the Bishop, in the shape of a chess piece (the bishop in English). Available in ceramic or Longwy enamels, sold between 1,500 and 4,500 euros each, it is the totem of the brand.. There would be one a day, says India Mahdavi. In twenty years, Las Cases Street has become his “epicenter”, the heart of its small empire, a well-functioning ecosystem. “We design, we produce, we distribute, we sell, we communicate, she explains in the living room of her studio furnished like a boudoir. It is a viable and sustainable economy. »
The great Perriand, who never managed to produce or sell her furniture herself, would have watched this dazzling neighbor with a touch of envy. Private houses, boutique hotels, bars, India Mahdavi spreads her creations all over the world from rue Las Cases. From plaids at 4,000 euros to striped plastic buoys designed for Monoprix, it reigns over international decoration. His taste, inspired one day by the Douanier Rousseau, another by the architect Ettore Sottsass or by the Iranian vernacular habitat, is a “cultural mixing”. She marries velvets and animal skins, waltzing with the spectrum of the rainbow. “I treat color like poetry, I put colors together like words and it doesn’t come from nowhere, poetry is a Persian tradition. »
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