Posted 10:14 pm Friday, August 17, 2012
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Design Sorceress; Muriel Brandolini's artisanal interiors inspire colorful living
By Kathryn Garvin
kgarvin@tylerpaper.com
Expect the unexpected from the interior designer Muriel Brandolini. Her work has been deeply influenced by her multicultural background. She grew up in Vietnam and the Caribbean. Living in France influenced her unfettered style, and her early days as a fashion stylist helped to lay a foundation for her interior design career to come.
kgarvin@tylerpaper.com
Expect the unexpected from the interior designer Muriel Brandolini. Her work has been deeply influenced by her multicultural background. She grew up in Vietnam and the Caribbean. Living in France influenced her unfettered style, and her early days as a fashion stylist helped to lay a foundation for her interior design career to come.
With no formal training, Ms. Brandolini blazed a trail using her apartment as a laboratory for her experiments with color and pattern. Her first book, “The World of Muriel Brandolini,” published by Rizzoli and available through Barnes & Noble, is a retrospective of her 17 years as an interior designer.
Pieter Estersohn’s photographs beautifully capture Ms. Brandolini’s truly eclectic and daredevil style.
Antiques and midcentury classics mingle with contemporary furniture. Walls are covered in handwrought beading or embroidery.
“I have continued to use fabric on the walls in nearly all my projects, as I find wallpaper to be cold while fabric upholstery makes walls irresistible to the touch,” Ms. Brandolini said.
Details, such as found objects, fabric walls and her signature slipper chairs covered in hand-pieced antique fabrics, have solidified her position as a celebrated interior designer. “I like to make rooms like a jewel box,” she said.
Bold and fearless with color, material and motif, she invents unencumbered by style restraints. Ms. Brandolini is ever playful.
“When I design, I combine fantasy, sensuality and mood. I am outspoken about my lack of formal design training, which allowed me a certain freedom to dare. I try to create beauty and comfort without pretension,”she said.
Ms. Brandolini’s book teaches and inspires. It offers project descriptions and client responses to finished interiors that help to unravel the mystery of her creative process.
One client sums up her experience with the designer this way: “I was attracted to her eclectic approach and how it did not fit into any particular style. It was unconventional yet elegant.Her work defied any particular look, and it managed to be comfortable and chic at the same time. I felt confident she would take risks and that she had tremendous ideas and vision.”
Ms. Brandolini’s fearlessness in working through clients’ needs without compromising her unique aesthetic are a joy to behold.
“Every project is a long trip into the unknown, like crossing a bridge whose other end can’t be seen,” Ms Brandolini said.
Antiques and midcentury classics mingle with contemporary furniture. Walls are covered in handwrought beading or embroidery.
“I have continued to use fabric on the walls in nearly all my projects, as I find wallpaper to be cold while fabric upholstery makes walls irresistible to the touch,” Ms. Brandolini said.
Details, such as found objects, fabric walls and her signature slipper chairs covered in hand-pieced antique fabrics, have solidified her position as a celebrated interior designer. “I like to make rooms like a jewel box,” she said.
Bold and fearless with color, material and motif, she invents unencumbered by style restraints. Ms. Brandolini is ever playful.
“When I design, I combine fantasy, sensuality and mood. I am outspoken about my lack of formal design training, which allowed me a certain freedom to dare. I try to create beauty and comfort without pretension,”she said.
Ms. Brandolini’s book teaches and inspires. It offers project descriptions and client responses to finished interiors that help to unravel the mystery of her creative process.
One client sums up her experience with the designer this way: “I was attracted to her eclectic approach and how it did not fit into any particular style. It was unconventional yet elegant.Her work defied any particular look, and it managed to be comfortable and chic at the same time. I felt confident she would take risks and that she had tremendous ideas and vision.”
Ms. Brandolini’s fearlessness in working through clients’ needs without compromising her unique aesthetic are a joy to behold.
“Every project is a long trip into the unknown, like crossing a bridge whose other end can’t be seen,” Ms Brandolini said.
