Nathalie Farman-Farma shows us around her pattern-filled house | Design Notes

So the fabrics have to live in the space happily.

That's really my criterion.

[easygoing piano music]

I am what is called a fabric publisher

and my company is called Décors Barbares.

The name comes from the criticisms of The Ballets Russes.

They were- when they performed first in Paris,

they were considered barbarian.

And I like that word because it is just a little bit

outside of good taste or what the idea of good taste is.

And with my fabrics,

they're traditional historical documents,

but they have a little of a spicy, bold side,

which I think has this sort of

Russian central, Eurasian edge.

My taste was very French, a little old fashioned,

and then I married my husband, who's from Iran,

and I just fell in love with the culture, with the fabrics,

with the the mix of patterns that you see in Iranian art,

be it in the miniatures or in the clothing.

I was really looking at a new way to interpret the East West

that I saw the wealth in Russian design

because their culture has been

about the East West symbiosis perhaps.

I think with this room and the decoration of this room

you can see the influence of Kester,

a lot of black furniture, a big focus on the fixtures,

the light fixtures, the borders like this.

This is a very French way of doing the curtains.

I like a lot of the same pattern, as well.

So I have a collection of Russian embroideries

that are very dear to me.

They used to belong to a woman called Natalia de Shabelsky,

who was one of the very early collectors of Russian textiles

and she had a very grand collection,

which is now the basis for the collection

in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and also the MET.

These were probably tea towels and they have all these

sort of archaic motifs of sort of an ancestral mythology.

[gentle piano music]

I think in terms of the archeology of the taste,

this room is the beginning

because we have everything Persian in here,

all the books on Iran.

This is a vintage fabric, but this is one of my

sort of Russian fabrics that works well

with almost anything on it.

And this one actually was found inside the robe

that belonged to one of Amir's cousins.

It looks really European, but it's not,

it was a Russian design.

It's very light, almost Peter Meyery,

especially in this room.

The house is a small little Chelsea house.

It was built around the time of the French Revolution

and I have actually, this bust,

that used to belong to Medland Casta.

I have a pair of Serge Poliakoff interior drawings.

I love his work and I've been always inspired by that.

I have some Russian furniture here, which again,

makes me think of another room that really inspired me

which is Nureyev's apartment done by Mongiardino.

So the bedroom is the center of the house,

sort of my comfort zone.

I always have a giant pile of books.

I love objects that are talismanic, in a way.

I mean, these are religious objects, but people love them,

and so they sort of go beyond just being a thing.

They're- they have a bit of power

and I've always loved and collected icons.

Bedroom is the right place for them, I think.

Here in the studio, I started with decorating books

and Russian books and then vintage fabrics.

I mainly use the fabrics for colors.

I'm particularly obsessed with Turkey red, Russian scarves.

Sometimes I use as tablecloths.

These is really adorable with a little pom poms.

This fabric, which I've seen in some opera costumes,

is the document I use to make my sofa fabric called Mujik.

It's an old peasant design.

I started my, my sort of russo-philia, I guess

with the Russian novels and the atmosphere

which most people love.

Bilibin is- this is 1901.

He was a big appreciator of folk art

and you can see that he really studied

and uses all the patterns in his drawings.

Endless trove.

I've used this actually in one of my fabrics,

this little design here.

A lot of my inspiration is from fabrics

that used to be used for clothing.

I buy the Central Asian chapans,

mainly for their linings, which are Russian printed cottons

with all sorts of designs, which they mix and match.

I'd love to reproduce many of these

and I'm a big fan of dark grounds.

This one is really one of my most popular favorite designs.

It's called Casse-noisette.

Again, it was redrawn from a Russian scarf.

All the elements one by one could be-

Could be French or could be English,

but it's the enthusiasm and just the mixing

of all the swirls and colors and putting basically,

probably three different scarf patterns into one.

And that makes it very Russian for me.

And this is a new paisley that I've just done,

again, based on a document.

And I've added borders because I love upholstered rooms

or I love to have the decorator be able to play

with the upholstery.

The paisley is really the symbol of deco baba

because it's a really, the ultimate East West symbol.

It's Kashmiri then it's printed in England

brought back to Central Asia.

I think this fabric is very much me.

I studied a lot.

I went to Brown University and I studied classics.

Then I went to Paris at the

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,

where I also was gonna get a PhD

in Helenic studies and Columbia.

So I've done a lot of study on ancient Greek.

Then I worked in publishing

and I thought the whole classics experience

had been a little bit of a waste of time.

But now that I'm delving into folklore,

I'm much more interested in that sort of

unsung part of cultures.

I realize that all that prior interest in myth

and customs and rituals has stayed with me

sort of underground and is resurfacing in this new way.

[easygoing piano music]