Maria Pergay

The Luxury Culture website and newsletter is fast becoming one of my favorite reads. Check out this weeks for a fascinating interview with the designer Maria Pergay.

Vintage Maria Pergay daybed and table both available through Jousse Enterprise

Vintage Maria Pergay bench seat through 1st Dibs

A more recent work by Pergay, a ribbon seat from JGM Galerie

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Glenn Sestig

I happily stumbled upon the work of Belgian based architect Glenn Sestig today while looking for something entirely unrelated. His work includes residential and all sorts of commercial projects, and while these spaces are quite modern and minimal, there is something in his choice of materials that gives them a richness and warmth that is not easy to acheive - especially in commercial spaces. Hope you enjoy!

The three images above are from a residence in Brussels. The wood panelling is divine.

A few examples of his retail spaces above.

A absolutely love the two images above, which I'm assuming are the lobby or check-in area in a hotel. The colours, the textures...it's sublime. It's the kind of space that I look at and wish that I had designed it. But, too late., it's already been done.

Another great image... so refined. And those chairs are fabulous!

Milan style

As promised here are the pics of Romeo Sozzi's Milan apartment. I've been meaning to post and share these with you for ages now, but I'm starting to realise why people are more often stating time as their greatest luxury. Nevertheless, here they are. I'm quite in love with the colour he's used on the majority of these walls - opposed to his Paris apartment, these are quite neutral but there is a real light and ethereal feeling about these spaces, but still warm. His use of materials is exquisite - silks, velvet, crocodile leather, ebony etc. As per his Paris apartment most the furniture is from his company Promemoria. Hope you enjoy!



All photography by Jo Pauwels, from the book "A&D Series: Urban Spaces" published in Hong Kong by Page One.

Romeo Sozzi - a man of style

Romeo Sozzi - the head designer of one of my favorite furniture collections Promemoria - is one incredibly stylish man. I first came across the furniture line while perusing a favorite shopping spot in Singapore, MOIE a few years ago. All of their designs are incredibly elegant, refined and remind me just a little of the designs of another famous Italian, Gio Ponti. Only the best materials are used, as you would imagine of an Italian company. Here are just a few of my favorite designs...

Irene Chair

Sofia Chair

Theo Desk

Wanda Sofa

Gong Bronze Tables - love this!

Galadriel Desk - and this!

Frou Bed

Club Sofa

I was already familiar with Signor Sozzi's Milan apartment, so you can imagine my delight to have found photos of his Paris apartment in the latest issue of the Italian Architectural Digest....just a little drool worthy.

The choice of colour throughout the apartment is an interesting one, a dusty rose I would probably call it. Not what you would normally call masculine, but I think with his mix of furniture and art its quite successful - it's nothing if not unique!

Two different views of the living area. I think the fabulous bones of this apartment play a big part in getting away with this colour on such a large scale. Like most of the furniture in his apartment, the 'Wanda' sofa is from Promemoria. I think the image just above may be my favorite of all...the colours are so harmonious and look fabulous with the art selected. Very dreamy indeed.

As in his Milan apartment, Sozzi has chosen to paint the kitchen an entirely different colour. Not sure what the thinking is behind that move, but I guess its good to break it up a bit.

The 'Kyoto' cabinet and 'Bamboo' dining table in the casual eating area, adjacent to the kitchen.

'Sofia' dining chairs can been seen in the more formal dining room. The room in the background looks to be painted in a fabulous chocolate colour...I wish they'd included pics of it...from what I can see it looks amazing.

Last but not least, the bedroom which has a 'Frou Frou' bed and 'Amacord' armoire.

If these are your kind of eye candy, stay tuned for tomorrow when I'll post pics of his Milan apartment which is equally as stylish.

Apartment photos from AD Italia, January 2009 by Giorgio Baroni. Furniture images from the Promemoria website.

I'm back (again)

Cambodia was wonderful! For anyone that has not yet been - you must! We spent 1 day in Phnom Penh (not enough) which we spent running between the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, the Russian Market, and then on to S21- or Tuol Sleng where about 15,000 prisoners were tortured during the Khmer Rouge regime - and then on to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek - where survivors of S21 were killed and buried in mass graves. Sounds like a nice holiday, hey? It was just as depressing as it sounds, I had to fight back tears, but well worth visiting if you have an interest in history. From there we had 4 days in Siem Reap. We spent 2 full days checking out the temples including Angkor Wat - the biggest, but not necessarily the best. There are literally hundreds of these temples in the area, ranging from 700 to 1,000 years old, you could spend weeks discovering them all. Two days was plenty enough for me! The rest of our time was spent by the fabulous pool at Raffles Hotel (if you've never stayed there, then that's definitely another must!), as well as the floating villages just outside of the town. There are so many great restaurants in Cambodia, I highly recommend Meric at the Hotel de la Paix - in Siem Reap where I discovered the amazing Taittinger champagne - delish! Here are a few pics (in no particular order) and I mean just a few. I stopped counting the photos I took after several hundred...

The weather was fantastic, the people are lovely and so friendly, food is good, everything is cheap (well, everything except Raffles...) so best you get yourself over there before the hordes of tourists get much worse!