Curated Rooms for Curated Conversation
Notes from Paris: A fellow Francophile joins the Traveling Designer and shares her story of a Parisian holiday with design in mind.
Amelia in Paris
What’s this? A guest post?! Before you click away, grumbling about posts lacking the usual style insight and decorative know-how you’ve come to love from this blog, allow me to introduce myself: my name is Amelia, a friend of Cathy’s, and I was invited to share with you some of my interior design observations inspired by a recent trip to Paris (and other surrounding environs!).
I’m a bit of an interior design dilettante, and when I was telling Cathy about the specific sites I was headed to in Paris (Versailles! The Musée Carnavalet!), we got to thinking this might be the chance to put what I’ve learned from her into practice and then share with you all! And don’t worry–I’ll leave any style advice to the professional!
So, want to go to Paris with me?
Paris, j’adore!
This trip began as a dream two years ago. I’m a bit of a word nerd and history enthusiast (translation: I am a professional writer with aspirations of being a historical fiction novelist), with the French Revolution being a perennial favorite of mine.
Here I am standing in front of the pearly gates–err, I mean gilded gates–of Chateau Versailles!
My dad–a Francophile himself–kindly agreed to join me for a skip across the pond so I could visit some of the favorite haunts of Revolutionaries, including the Palais Royal and Le Procope.
The Palais Royal began as the private residence of the Duke of Orleans, but was eventually made into a public gathering space boasting restaurants, cafés, and stores. Supposedly, on the eve of what would become Bastille Day, the revolutionary Camille Desmoulins hopped onto a table outside of a café and, through rousing rhetoric, stirred a crowd to arms. Unfortunately, we didn’t find this famous table or Camille when we visited!
Le Procope, on the Left Bank, was a brasserie established in 1686. During the Revolution, it was a favorite for revolutionaries as it had a back entrance. If their creditors came looking for them, they could run out of the back! I highly recommend this spot for lunch or an early dinner before taking in a show at the Odéon Theatre!
Paris’ oldest Museum: The Carnavalet-History of Paris Museum
Though I was fully prepared to love the Musée Carnavalet for its extensive collection of artifacts from the Revolutionary era…
What came as a surprise, and then proceeded to thoroughly enchant me, were the restored rooms. These rooms were rescued from homes scheduled to be demolished around the city. Each were then lovingly reassembled in the museum, and now serve as sumptuous portals into Paris’ history–and interior design history!
Artifacts including Robespierre’s personal wash basin!
Salon DeMarteau in the Musée Carnavalet
The Blue Salon at the Musée Carnavalet
The Art of the Salon: Curating Spaces for Connection and Conversation
You’ll notice that the wall decorations are artworks each unto themselves. All of them offer canvases by which the designer can accessorize the space with objets d’art carefully curated to create a more welcoming room; to please the eye; to reflect the room’s inhabitants; or (and far more likely for the original owners of the rooms in the Musée) to spark conversation.
You see, most of these reconstructed rooms are salons, one of the most public spaces in Parisian homes from yesteryear (i.e the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries). These are the rooms that, if you were calling on an acquaintance, you’d be received in and probably not see beyond. As Americans, we would call these rooms ‘living rooms,’ but they’re not quite comparable.
For one thing, salons held a social connotation as they were often presided over by ladies so as to distinguish herself or her family (you can read about some of these women here).
For another thing, the Parisian hostess (called salonnièrie) did not clutter her living room with photos from recent family beach vacations or her children’s latest art endeavors. Instead, she strived to curate a space that represented both herself and the types of people she wished to gather in her home: intellectuals, politicians, artists, scientists, philosophers, etc.
In these salon hostess’ homes, the exchange of ideas and wit was its own currency. In fact, many historians credit salons as the cradle for some of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesque’s most earth-shattering Enlightenment ideas.
It was up to the salonnièrie to provide the refreshments, spark witty conversation, and heat up a debate. Central in her arsenal to achieve this end was the creation of a beautiful space.
La Lecuture de Molière by Jean-François de Troys captures one of France’s great playwrights as he reads to an adoring crowd in a salon. Any salon hostess would’ve killed to have such a superstar guest in their salon.
If you’re like me, and you love a good chat with your friends, you can’t help but feel a little envious of these beautiful salons perfectly contrived to foster conversation. How did these salonnières do it? It’s a good question, one worth exploring because maybe we can emulate it!
Lessons from the Salonnières
What does this room say? Does it make you want to say more?
White Salon at the Musée Carnavalet (Source)
A little imagination is required to fully furnish the White Salon (shown above).
If we subtract the visitor walkway and the information placard to instead fill the room with more plush furniture, more fascinating clocks, and more portraits with arresting looks, what might this salon inspire us to do? To say? To add to a conversation? Would we be inclined to settle back in our chairs, a lovely steaming cup of tea in hand with a madeline balanced on the saucer, and linger for hours as our friends debated about new art techniques, or recently published belle-lettres, or the latest scientific development? Would we be inspired, perhaps, to throw in our two cents? So went the thoughts of the salonièrie.
She answered these questions–and prompted her guests to gab–by dressing her salons with the latest fashions. For the eighteenth-century hostess, that means Rococo and by including thoughtfully-selected conversation pieces.
Designers Timothy Haynes and Kevin Roberts capture a modern interpretation of the salon-mindset: elegant, fashionable space that inspires and elevates. Any salonnière would gladly hold forth here! (Source)
The Language of Decor: Objects That Spark Connection
Now, hold on, hold on; I know what you’re thinking: conversational pieces?! What!
Before you roll your eyes and shake your head at the triteness of the humble conversation piece (what else can we call that ostentatious clock on the mantelpiece in the White Salon?), hear me out!
Conversation pieces don’t need to be a silly tchotchke or space-gobbler, though don’t let me stop you from having one or two items that fit that bill (after all, our unwanted Christmas presents from loved ones have to live somewhere…). Instead, think of the objects you have decorating your bookshelves or your sideboards as each holding a potential conversation. Sure, they should first and foremost be reflections of you, but what are they saying about you, the host?
The two porcelain Foo dogs on the sideboard might speak to the host’s interest in Chinese culture, or perhaps travel. How might this spark the sort of conversations you and your guests feel energized by?
How about this modern example? How might the framed pressed flowers and books spark conversation? (Source)
Conversation pieces can be as simple as souvenirs from a trip (see: Foo dogs) or as every day as books (see: the delightful amount cramming the photo above). A salonnièrie knew she had to present spaces that were interesting, as if she were using the salon as a marketing tool to promise her conversations would be equally interesting. Therefore, she decorated her salon accordingly.
Now, let me be the first to say: no one should feel the need to be interesting all the time–never mind in their own home! However, we can echo the salonnièries as we begin to build a space by asking: what are my objects saying? And are they starting a conversation I want to have?
Seating That Invites Stories and Connection
Another trick the salonièrie utilized was to assure a plethora of seating.
A beautiful chaise and ottoman set (Source). This goes beyond just ensuring your guests have a plush pillow behind their back!
Is there such a thing as too many chairs?
The seating in the salon would be strategically arranged to help facilitate conversation, banter, laughter, and debate. Chairs were often grouped to create clusters of discussion or centered around a game table where discourse might be held over a game of cards.
This is in stark comparison to our modern day living rooms with chairs focused towards a television screen.
Most of the furniture in this seating arrangement is focused on the flat screeen—- or is it the beautiful stone fireplace?
Mon maison est ton maison
A reoccuring theme I’ve noticed in Cathy’s blog is the importance of crafting spaces that are reflections of you: your personality, your interests, and your experiences. However, if you’re like me and see hospitality as inviting friends in to linger awhile, to chat, and to make my home theirs, then why not take a leaf out of the salonnièries’ book? Craft spaces that spark your chatter, your joy, and your laughter.
Interested what your home is saying and how to change the conversation? Then contact Cathy! She’ll help provide you with the real style insight. As for me, the traveling designer dilettante, I’m signing off! Thanks for visiting Paris’ salons with me!
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