“IT’S SO NICETO HAVEPAINTINGSALL OVER THEHOUSE. YOUCAN STAREAT THEMFOR HOURSAND SEEDIFFERENTTHINGSEVERY DAY”white render that curls up through the centre of the space.
“The staircase really made the shape of the house,” says Khelfa.
Another key structural feature was the glass extension to the
basement kitchen. “That was Philippe’s greatest idea – a big
veranda that opens on to the garden.”
Luxurious though the house is, there is simplicity at its
heart. White-painted walls set off wide oak floorboards and
vaulted ceilings that lend the space the serenity of a mid-
century American chapel. This quietness allows for the
couple’s singular collection of art to take its rightful position.
“Oh, the art is Henri, you know?” Khelfa says nonchalantly
of the mind-blowing mix of old masters and contemporary
African paintings on every wall, and the African figurative
sculptures and historic artefacts gathered, like a flash mob in
suspended animation, in the upstairs salon. Seydoux, father
(from his first marriage) of actor Léa and stylist Camille, is
CEO of telecommunications company Parrot and co-founder
of Christian Louboutin. He has been collecting a mix of grand
old oil paintings by the likes of François Gérard and Hyacinthe
Rigaud as well as 20th-century furniture by Jean Royère, Jean
Prouvé and Charlotte Perriand, since he was a teenager. “Every
weekend he goes to Drouot [the Paris auction house], where
everyone goes now, but he went in the 1990s and bought a lot
of pieces cheap because they weren’t fashionable,” says Khelfa.
The collection of contemporary African art is possibly the
foremost in France and a source of delight to Khelfa – if you
follow her lively Instagram feed, you’ll see her out and about
at openings supporting artists from that continent and beyond.
“African art is such an important movement. I love Chéri
Samba, of course, he is one of the best. I like George Lilanga,
Moké and the furniture of Gonçalo Mabunda. And I love
putting modern African sculpture with an Ancient Greekhead and an 18th-century painting,” she says. “The mix of all
these pieces makes the atmosphere of the house very special.”
It’s typically droll of Khelfa to confess that, prior to moving,
one of the things she liked most was a blank space. “I always
loved white, clinical walls,” she says dreamily. And yet it was
she who was responsible for the dramatic arrangement of the
paintings. “I wasn’t busy at the time, so it was my job to hang
the art.” She laughs. “It was overwhelming at first to have
this art looking at me, but it became like therapy. Now, it’s
so nice to have paintings all over the house. You can stare at
them for hours and see different things every day.”
She has several works by the French-Algerian artist Adel
Abdessemed to remind her of her heritage, but her favourite
piece is an Ancient Egyptian sculpture of Sekhmet, a warrior
goddess with the head of a lion. It sits next to two imposing
oils, one of Joachim Napoléon Murat by Gérard, the other,
unsigned, of a rabbit walking on its hind legs and carrying
an umbrella. “It’s like living in a museum, but it’s not
ceremonious because you can touch everything,” she says.
Furniture is similarly eclectic. A favourite chair with a carved
head by Bandia Camara, known in the family as the “African
king chair”, is where Khelfa, a great reader, sits every morning
devouring e-books. In the evenings, they gather in the kitchen
with their student sons, Ismaël, 24, and Omer, 21, and entertain
friends. Seydoux is the chef. “He loves to cook, and it’s a good
thing because I hate it,” says Khelfa. “I’m very bad!”
A rare tell of Khelfa’s glittering fashion career is her
spectacular walk-in closet, a floor-to-ceiling mirrored storage
system that glides along tracks operated with industrial hand
wheels. “It was Henri’s idea to make it like the archives in
a museum,” she says. “I worked in fashion for so many years
I have tons of clothes. This makes it easy.” The mass of > © ADAGP, PARIS/DACS, LONDON 2019The open-plan living
areas, including the
kitchen, overlook
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