A century after Coco Chanel revolutionised the fashion world, another French label is set on transforming your wardrobe – together with your sofa, bookshelves, curtains or any part of your home in need of a certain je nais se quoi.
Christian Liaigre needs no introduction. Since opening his first showroom in the Rue de Varenne in 1987, the interior designer has become renowned for his understated aesthetic, creating luxurious, minimalist pieces copied the world over.
His redefined modernism, showcasing the finest in French craftsmanship, can be seen in the homes and showrooms of style icons such as Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein, as well as the Mercer Hotel in New York, the Motu Tane in Bora Bora and the stylishly fashionable La Societe restaurant on Paris’s always-chic Left Bank.
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It will also grace the new Imperial Treasure restaurant in London’s Waterloo Place when it opens next year, a skillful harmonising of East and West – and the confines of the UK’s listed-building regulations – to create a contemporary and serene eatery.
The design is, as ever, timeless. “This is because we have freedom,” Anne Schuhmacher, director of marketing and communications, tells Portfolio when we visit the label’s “atelier” – its new headquarters on the Rue de Lille on Paris’s Left Bank, a tactile delight of oak and cedar and Liaigre’s signature natural, muted colours. “We are not tied to fairs and seasons so we have the freedom to take as much time as perfection requires and be selective in everything we do.”
Now 74, Liaigre himself stepped down in 2016 – he has one project left – but not before appointing his wife Deborah Comte-Liaigre artistic director of Liaigre Design Service and German interior architect Frauke Meyer as creative head of the company, which is now simply called Liaigre.
The two women are dedicated to continuing the “sophisticated simplicity” of the maison, they tell us: clean, elegant and restrained proportions and finishes using “pure and noble materials”.
It is under their direction that Liaigre is taking its interiors to the next level. Recognising a need to marry showrooms with the design studio, Comte-Liaigre created the Design Service: bespoke interior decoration available in the London, New York, Paris and Bangkok stores. Designers work closely with their international clientele to provide custom interiors, proposing furniture, textiles, rugs, accessories, lighting and even art and antiques to suit that client’s needs and desires. Comte-Liaigre herself is also available to design particular pieces when necessary.
If this is Liaigre’s “demi-mesure”, then Meyer is in charge of its “haute couture” – interior architecture, in which everything is designed anew. Designers move windows and doors to overlook a stunning garden, for example, as they did on a private home in Mougins, on the Cote d’Azur, or add interior wood panels to combat the midday sun on a villa in Alta Gracia in Spain.
With projects ranging from individual rooms to entire homes, offices, hotels and even planes and yachts, projects can last months or several years. No detail is too big – or, it appears, too small, with one designer telling Portfolio she is on the hunt for wine glasses of a particular size. “Our client has an extensive wine collection,” she says. “He wants the perfect glasses for his wines.”
Naturally, the glasses have to be up to Liaigre’s exacting standards: anything less is rejected. “We will never use a material that isn’t perfect,” Schuhmacher says.
Christian Liaigre may have stepped down, but his legacy will never go out of fashion.
Liaigre Design Service is available in the Liaigre showrooms in London, Paris, New York and Bangkok. For information, visit Liaigre.
