While chinoiserie was employed by the
wealthy (and, often, crowned) heads of
Europe during the halcyon years of the
18th and 19th centuries, Moralioglu
discovered his love of it closer to home at
“a wonderful Notting Hill town house,
many moons ago,” where he was enthralled
to see a mint-colored de Gournay wrapping
around his friend’s majestic living room.
“It was such an extraordinary idea—that
you cover a room in something entirely
made by hand,” he says. “My own work
has a very human hand, whether it’s
embroidery, print, texture.” (The friend
has since relocated, and the precious
panels moved from west to south London,
revealing another glory of de Gournay:
its investment value.)
It’s difficult to imagine a prettier
collaboration. Moralioglu’s sensuous spin
on chinoiserie is crafted in de Gournay’s
mainland China artist studio, a short
distance from Shanghai, where each custom
panel can be hand-painted over any of
de Gournay’s base colors.“I was thinking
about my mother, who was English,
and my father, who was Turkish; looking at
English roses, Turkish roses, and birds
originating from England, Turkey, and
Canada,” says the designer. Sparrows,
warblers, and pheasants swoop and perch
on a verdant lattice of branches and
hydrangea, set against vibrant marigold,
lemon, and a deep Kelly green. The
aforementioned “Debo” blue (after Deborah
Cavendish, the 11th Duchess of Devonshire)
is actually taken from the paint used
in the Erdem store in Mayfair (which was
developed by Moralioglu’s husband,
architect Philip Joseph).
“His color choices are extraordinarily
vibrant,” says de Gournay scion and director
of business development Hannah Cecil
Gurney, who first approached Moralioglu
about the collaboration two years ago.
“He wasn’t held back by traditions or
architecture—his vision is beauty for beauty’s
sake.” The exercise also allowed Moralioglu
to rediscover his own archive. The lovebirds
fluttering from the panels are from his
runway debut, and the Le Moyne–inspired
botanicals from a long-ago pre-fall
collection. (He has also incorporated what
he calls “little secrets,” including the birds
that adorned his wedding-breakfast linens.)
The clothes themselves carry delicately
rescaled iterations of the wallpaper print,
with their painterly nuance rendered across
three neutral backgrounds of black, white,
and French navy. “I was thinking about
dresses that had a real lightness to them,”
Moralioglu says, pulling at a tiered
silk-georgette gown with a Watteau back.
The collection includes nine dresses—
ranging from impressive gowns to a cheery
cotton poplin shirtwaist style and a silk
handkerchief-hem sundress—and the
designer’s stately fabulosity is everywhere
on display in the details, from pussy-cat
bows and Victoriana collars to swooshy
bishop sleeves. A short, diaphanous cape
dress is adorned with the same enchanting
design, while the fluttery voile top and
crepe de chine bias-cut skirt will land nicely
at any summer garden party as an elegant
alternative to a dress.
Moralioglu’s research for the collaboration
even took him to the grandest of addresses:
Buckingham Palace. On a walking tour
with Caroline de Guitaut, deputy surveyor
of the queen’s works of art at Royal
Collection Trust, he saw “the chinoiserie
room that leads onto the balcony where
they wave, which is just beautiful—it’s
wonderful when you see people living with
chinoiserie and absorbing it,” he says.
(Another inspiration: the elegant gusto of
Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent’s
Paris apartment, images of which are pinned
to his mood board.) The designer, who is
completing the renovation of his own
Georgian town house, envisages the Kelly
green in the upper guest room, further
dressed (or disrupted) with a pale Kaye
Donachie painting and a Cecil Beaton
illustration—both of which are currently
propped up on his studio floor. @
GREAT WALLS
TOP RIGHT: A PAINTED-SILK DE
GOURNAY PRINT COVERS THE
GUEST BEDROOM IN HANNAH CECIL
GURNEY’S LONDON HOME.
ABOVE: A WALLPAPER DESIGNED
BY MORALIOGLU.
VLIFE
66 APRIL 2020 VOGUE.COM
LEFT: COURTESY OF DE GOURNAY; RIGHT: SIMON UPTON.
VOGUE
, 2015.
