Art, heirlooms and cushions galore – the opulent Left Bank apartment of the
Sisley co-founder Isabelle d’Ornano is stuffed with treasures, says Roisin Kelly
You might expect an uber-elegant Polish
countess, who also happens to be the
co-founder of the £570-million beauty brand
Sisley, to be a fan of minimalism — but when
it comes to her Parisian home, Isabelle
d’Ornano, 84, is quite the opposite. “I like a
mixture of styles and things that are a bit
extravagant. I love colour,” says the beauty
industry mogul, who launched the luxury
cosmetics brand with her late husband,
Hubert, in 1976. She now runs the company
with her son Philippe, daughter Christine
and granddaughter Daria.
The family’s spacious four-bedroom,
four-bathroom apartment, situated on the
scenic Quai d’Orsay along the River Seine
on the Left Bank of the city, is filled with
the kind of eclectic decor, family heirlooms
and old photographs that can only be
acquired over decades.
“I’ve had the apartment for nearly 50 years
and we loved to collect things,” d’Ornano
says. It would be difficult — no, impossible
— to find a quiet corner in any of the rooms.
Every wall is hung with artwork, every
surface occupied with ornaments or books,
and along the floor runs a handmade multi-
coloured carpet by Braquenié. “When we
moved in, all the floors were marble and
I thought, ‘I can’t live with marble floors,’ so
we put in the wall-to-wall carpet, which has
all the other colours of the room in it.
Somehow everything mixes well.”
Some would assume that owning a pres-
tigious, multimillion-pound beauty business
would lead to exclusively expensive taste,
but for d’Ornano the blend of valuable
artworks with homemade decor and treas-
ured photographs is what makes her apart-
ment a home. “Not everything is valuable,
it’s a mixture. Money helps you to have
beautiful things but it’s not money that
makes a place cosy.”
Take the colourful cushions littered
around the living room — d’Ornano hand-
stitches these herself, usually while watching
television. “I’ve been doing needlepoint
since I was about 25. I put words like ‘Love’
or ‘Grace’ on my cushions — I’ve learnt that
from contemporary art. A lot of great artists
use words because they have a meaning, they
signify something.”
Carefully placed lighting is another trick
d’Ornano uses to help give the apartment itsPhotographs Christina
Vervitsioti-MissoffeMore is more
44 • The Sunday Times Style