Decor Hardcore: India Mahdavi’s Garden of Excess

Laduree at Quai des Bergues, Geneva

Published by
Sammy Preston
November 25, 2016

India Mahdavi's latest decadent interior project been unveiled - a plush violet and lime hued temple for luxury French patissier, Laduree.

From the extensively Instagrammed plush pink Sketch dining room in London to the Red Valentino store on Sloane Street, and now the brand new Laduree cafe in Geneva – India Mahdavi’s interiors are decadent, to say the least. A little like stepping through the looking glass, or into Marie Antoinette’s boudoir, the Iranian born, Paris-based interior designer and architect is prone to a candy colour palette and creamy details.

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She’s somewhat of a rising star, but Mahdavi is not for the faint of heart. Whether or not you appreciate the saccharine, intense sugar bomb that is her signature style – she is undoubtedly pushing the boundaries of hospitality and retail experience with otherworldly design detail.

Mahdavi studied at Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts, and New York’s School of Visual Arts and Parsons, before settling in Paris to work as artistic director for interior architect and furniture designer Christian Liaigre. She now oversees her design studio, showroom, and a store for her ‘petits objets‘ (velvet cushions, woven outdoor chairs and egg-shaped ceramic ash trays).

At Laduree’s new cafe in high-rolling Quai des Bergues in Geneva, Mahdavi has created “a garden of delights” divided into a restaurant, patisserie, cocktail bar and tea room on the ground floor of the Four Seasons Hotel. True to the Laduree brand it’s very baroque, but there’s a slick of the future too with its starlit circular emerald salon.

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After years of beige and white, or austere black and polished concrete – perhaps the future is Mahdavi. Zig-zag terrazzo, velvet banquettes, heavy brass accents, candied colour and all.

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