PRESS EYES: INTERIORS MAGAZINE

INTERIORS MAGAZINE USA

August September 2013

in Sant Martí Vell

text and photos by Benedetta Pignatelli

"Most people experiment with style one way—either in their look or their home. Those who give ardent attention to both probably have intimidated friends who never want to come over. To be extraordinary in appearance and interiors is to suffer a few unreturned phone calls. If self-awareness is trusted to take the lead, intrinsically we have a preference and we’re naturally gifted in only one area. This revelation leaves the ego somewhat banged up: I am more fashionable than my home versus My home is more attractive than I am. Disheartening, but imagine being terrible at both. The real, elated volt of suspense is in lining up the two, the aesthetic inside and out to glean an unofficial biography of everyone you know. Dresses like this but lives like that—it’s as much a surprise as it is an investigation. You think you know someone. These surface evaluations are deeper than they look. How we dress and how we live are among the only decisions we can make without permission. Two separate identities free from the autocratic parameters of work life (or love life), these are entirely your call. And they should feel like recess, like arts and crafts, like an unsupervised raid of every idea, color, whim, era and philosophy you’ve ever wanted to try. That is where Elsa Peretti lives. Our patron saint of individuality, the irrepressibly chic designer opened her very private home/studio in sun-soaked Catalonia to writer and photographer Benedetta Pignatelli and now, to us in Expo. Tracing over every object, her personal artifacts, the way she arranges her world is a fascinating dive into an all-consuming vision. And it’s a reminder that experimentation is not swapping in bright pillows, or bringing back French-rolled jeans. Those are transitory elements, the punctuation for peppering the tone; sometimes it snarls in heavy hardware or drifts off into beige. Laying down the raw, wild text and committing to it, that is authentic style."

Arianne Nardo
Editor-in-Chief Interiors Magazine

(click on images to enlarge)