Monday, May 17, 2010

House Tour: Herve Pierre brings Paris to NYC

Lately, I'm finding myself more and more drawn to spaces that say, "this is me, this is what I like, and this is where I live." Less hyper-designed perfection, more personality.

And, despite everything I know about proper design, about corralling chaos and the "take one thing off" ethos...I kind of love designer Herve Pierre's New York apartment -- filled top to bottom with 18th century antiques, art books and fashion industry detritus. Is it for me? Not really. But you can tell it makes him genuinely happy and inspired, and that's exactly what a home should be.

From NYMag:
"Hervé Pierre, the creative director of Carolina Herrera, is a thoroughly modern man with an utterly romantic eighteenth-century sensibility. He left the Loire Valley of his youth to become the head of haute couture at Pierre Balmain in Paris (at the age of 24). But he’s lived here for the past fifteen years—where he’s found some ingenious ways to combat homesickness, stocking his refrigerator with Côte d’Or chocolate and his foyer with a noblewoman’s 1780 sedan chair. His is perhaps the only condo on lower Fifth Avenue to have been transformed into a veritable cabinet of curiosities. “I am in New York during business hours,” Pierre explains, “but at home I need to be in Paris.”