Jacqueline Morabito collection...

Finally...coming through...tout doucement...
Like a dream come true...

Last Summer, in the South of France, I met her...kind, douce, passionate, smiling...
From our meeting, a dream (my dream!) came true and it fills me with deep joy and a sense of peace to introduce you to the woman who has the most influenced my life, my home, my vision.
Be patient, more things are coming...beautiful, timeless, simple

My meeting with Jacqueline Morabito...

Yesterday, Steve did the sweetest, loving thing for me, driving 160kms from our holidays place to just take me to Jacqueline Morabito's shop in La-Colle-Sur-Loup...

I can't express how much this meant to me...I guess, Morabito is to me what Anne Wintour would be to fashionistas. An exceptional woman with an amazing vision for simplicity and beauty and someone whose work and vision has influenced my life immensely and of course, the birth of BODIE and FOU.

Nowadays, white interiors can be seen everywhere but Jacqueline Morabito was an Avant-gardiste in the way she created simple, flawless, understated yet welcoming contemporary white interiors and although often copied, her style is very unique. You won't see shabby chic in Morabito's work but rather a vision for purity and simplicity, which can also be found in the small decorative pieces she designs for the home.
I remember the stab of pain I felt the first time I came across her home in a French magazine in my twenties... There it was, spread over a few pages, her amazing white, simple and achingly cool contemporary home. I never looked back and although my work at B&F introduced me to a lot of talented designers, Morabito is right up there, at the top as my Design icon.
So going to her showroom in La-Colle-Sur-Loup was like a pilgrim for me but never in a million years, I would have dreamt the amazing and magical day that I had...
I spent a good hour in the shop, talking about her work as an Interior Designer, the objects she designs, taking photos and buying some beautiful gifts for Elodie and my mum and I was leaving... she arrived, beautiful, radiant and smiling.

I introduced myself, she kindly invited me to sit in her office (can you spot my Clare Vivier Tropezienne bag?), told me she knew about BODIE and FOU (honestly...this is mad!) and we talked about her work, about B&F, about what we could do together and all this time, while I was sitting in front of her, the only thing I felt doing was hugging her. I just wanted to hold her. She was so warm and welcoming, so passionate!
She is 'petite' (I'm only 1.55m), she has beautiful lines on her face, white long hair and the most sparkling eyes. Dressed in white with a pair of Bensimon, she looked amazing.

Anyway, to cut a long story short (the long one with photos of her shop and inspiring studio will be for when I get back to work next week), we talked and we agreed to work together... So good things are going to happen on BODIE and FOU soon, very good, nice things and right now, I'm feeling incredibly lucky not only to have met such an exceptional woman but also to know that this is not the end.
And I can't thank enough Steve who waited and looked after Mila for 2.30 hours while I was talking with her.

(C) Photos: BODIE and FOU

Morabito's inspired mood board

Last week I promised I would put together a Morabito - inspired mood board so here it is...
Achieving her simple, timeless, inspiring style is not just a matter of painting a room in white and adding a few white accessories.
Bearing in mind also that not everyone is married to an artist like her late husband and Architect Yves Bayard was, it also a bit more challenging to achieve the Morabito look if you do not live in a contemporary home with concrete floors, superb volumes, high ceilings and natural light.
However challenging it is, this is not impossible if you have at least wooden floorboards (and maybe if we really really want to stretch it....laminate flooring..argh..just writing 'laminate flooring' makes me cringe).
Ok let's run with it because I'm aware that a lot of property developers didn't refurbish their investments with Morabito's style in mind.
So of course the first thing to do is to paint all the walls in white which will not only create a blank canvas but will bring a beautiful, natural light to the room (very good if you suffer from SAD like me).
However, favour a white paint which will give some kind of texture or luminosity to the room. The Pure Brilliant White By Dulux is super easy to use and inexpensive (you can easily do a room for £12) but although it's called 'pure brilliant, it has a matt finish which I found quite flat and I mean by that, it's lacking of light. Depending on the light during the day, the white seems to be pulled towards shade of greys rather than being enhanced by natural light so inexpensive but not
On the contrary, the Pure Brilliant White mat by Crown has a great silky finish on which daylight bounces but Gosh, I almost hang myself out of frustration....It was painful to apply so my favourite choice is the Acrylic Satin Emulsion Paint from the Little Green company.
First, it's environment-friendly which I think is something we should all care about rather than always going for the cheap option (this apply to fashion too) and it has a fantastic finish. A bit more expensive than the other 2 but I think spending £25 to re-do a room is still very reasonable.
Then you can either paint the floorboard in white or sand them.
I'm trying both at home at the moment, mainly because Steve has sanded a room to my request and I can not decently tell him now that I'm going to paint the floorboards without him losing it. So I'm currently bleaching this room to clean the wood and the other one, which has already white painted floorboards will get a new coat of paint (I will let you know which one looks best when I'm done with them).
If you have laminate floors or carpets, well...c'est la vie..No I'm kidding but I guess you will do what I did for years, just wait to be able to find the right house with original floorboards.
Once your canvas is ready, just go easy on the decoration part.
Bedding (sorry I should have mentioned that I was in the bedroom)....go for simple beds rather than one which is going to set the entire mood in the room. I'm in love with the brushed-steel bedframe from Parma Lilac (if you are aware of similar designs without headboards - let me know please) and go for organic, cotton bed linens (pure linen if you can afford to splash).
Muji and the White Company have a great selection of nice duvet covers in organic cotton and beautiful hues of white, soft grey and sand.

Then accessorize...gently...take your time...Add one thing at the time and just wait. Wait for you to feel the room, to really get that less is more.
Personally I think an old, vintage (even rusty and broken) French garden chair looks like a piece of art against a wall white. A bit what Morabito achieves here with this old stool below. When we moved in our house last December, there was a broken garden chair slowly dying on the roof terrace which now looks amazing in the room.
Rather than safely hanging a beautiful print centered above the bed (boring, boring, boring), style the room by hanging it on one side of the bed using your old garden chair as a side table or simply hang ceramic decorations, crosses or something unusual like this reproduction of an XVIII Century stoup and display drawing and B&W family photos in picture frames left on the floor to add to the creative, artistic flair of the room.

Lighting: There is two ways to achieve the Morabito style (well...three).

Either you go for a beautiful French vintage chandelier (see above) and I will try to drag Steve there (antiques, tea & cakes sounds quite good to me) or for a simple bone china pendant light like Kathleen Hills knows how to make.
You can also try to make a pendant light yourself by buying some twisted flex from a DIY shop and create a loop. I also like the look of this beautiful light by Birgit Ostergaard. I have it at home and it really looks beautiful.
Then for the final touches, simply add things you really love and mix contemporary, feminine accessories like these pretty tea-lights with flea-market founds - i.e. an old French metal box or an almond green tea box from Laduree, a gift from my friend Mel which I now use to store spare buttons (don't ask, it's one of these 'mother to daughter' things/habits I inherited).
Hang a beautiful, linen bag on your cupboard to store socks and tights and display a few, stylish bottles to store your body lotion, perfume, etc...

I really enjoy doing this post so I hope you will love it. Have a lovely weekend

My Design hero...Jacqueline Morabito

We should all have heroes, people who inspire us to be more creative and adventurous, whose life, achievements, talents encourage us to better ourselves and get out of our comfort zone.
When I was growing up in France, my heroes were my sister Elodie, Robert Doisneau, Andy Wharol, Vanessa Paradis, top model Roberta Chirko (do you remember her in the 80s?) and Jacqueline Morabito.
Fastforward 20 years later and now I relate more to the photography of Veronique Vial - and can not recommend enough the sensitive and beautiful portraits of women she took for a book Women before 10 am - the style of Helena Christensen's home, Vanessa's simply perfect choices in cinema and music, my sister forever for being a beautiful person inside/out and Morabito...

Morabito's minimalist almost monastic style at home has always made me feel incredibly calm.
Out of all the interiors she has done, her house in Saint Paul de Vence, a 16th-century sheep barn, located amidst an olive grove and re-designed by her late husband architect Yves Bayard, is my favourite.
Where do I start???
...I'm in total awe with the simple, pure lines of the building and how Bayard has made the surrounding nature, a part of their home.

...I love how Jacqueline mixes simple, contemporary pieces (like the vase from Tse-Tse below) with vintage, baroque accessories such as XVIII century candlesticks or industrial lights,
...I dream of owing one her trademark square coffee and diner tables,
...I admire her work, her creativity and her talent,
...I wish someone from her team would answer the few emails I sent to stock her designs on BODIE and FOU!

Look at the lines and volumes of this bathroom.....not a single ugly pipe in sight!
Just light, water and wood....

Like Jacqueline or maybe because of her, I love crosses too and since we have a few beautiful things on BODIE and FOU that would work for anyone wishing to achieve the Jacqueline Morabito look like this gorgeous ceramic cross or this XVIII Century stoup, I'm going to put together a 'Morabito mood board' for your pleasure.
Bonne nuit!

Images via Remodalista and Kavka who I thank for her lovely email, sweet words and latest post. If you haven't seen Asia's beautiful house and her Morabito's inspired bathroom, click here

House tour to inspire/ Owner: Asia Gwis, graphic designer

For the past three weeks, our household has been in DYI-action mood...(and I'm tired - hence my lack of postings..or maybe it's just the wine I drank last night...).
I started by Mila's bedroom, painting one of her walls in dark grey and her cupboards in light grey and yippee Miss "I only love yellow or pink" loves it!....
I also painted bedroom 2 in white and Steve sanded the floorboards to reveal nice, Scandi feel floorboards that I will try to bleach over the weekend and I've tackled bedroom 3 with the most annoying paint ever...One that goes back on the roll if you roll over areas freshly painted and takes ages to dry.
This is driving me nuts! I spent 4 hours painting the first room with brand no 1 and almost 2 weekends painting the 2nd room with brand no 2. However, how annoying this paint is, the finish is a lot nicer so I will keep my head down and spend a 3rd weekend trying to get it done for good so I can finally add the Tribeca lamps on each side of the bed and start having fun with decorative touch.
A couple of nights ago, while I was searching the net, trying to find inspiring, new images of Jacqueline Morabito's work, I came across this great home that belongs to Asia Gwis, a graphic designer based in Poland and her husband Sebastian.
Their house was a 80 year old former schoolhouse which they moved to Warsaw to restore it. Now.... Were you familiar with the concept of moving houses?? The first time I heard about it, it puzzled me. Call it cultural differences but in France, we build brick & mortar houses and that's it, they don't move so imagine my surprise when I went to New-Zealand to visit my in-laws and saw kiwi batches (i.e. summer house) happily being driven from one part of the country to another one....I think it's amazing to be able to do that, the whole engineering thing behind it is fascinating...so that's what Asia and Sebastian did. They fell in love with the house, moved it to Warsaw and spent years renovating it to create a wonderful living space for them, their 2 cats and 3 dogs.
I love how the white painted floorboards create a visual contrast against the feature wall in a dark colour and I'm a big fan of the red flex, Asia and Sebastian used to hang the single pendant lights which adds a modern touch to the room (check out how Country Homes & Interior styled the Norm 06 to achieve a similar effect in a more classic way).
Painting floorboards is an old trick but it's also a very cheap way to revamp a house while bringing tons of light and feel-good vibes like in Gabrielle's family house.

The sofa is from Ikea (so are the kitchen units) and the giant lamp is similar to the Anglepoise Giant1227. The good thing about these house tours and that they give you a chance to see how one thing could just work wonder in your own space.
For me, the photos that did the trick were these two below.
Although doors, cupboards with blackboard paint are a pretty recurrent theme now in contemporary family houses, this door tucked under the stairs is very similar to the fitted cupboards we have under our stairs and that seriously need to be modernised.

And of course the Jacqueline Morabito-inspired bath tub which I adore (see Asia's version above and Morabito's version below). Asia added personal touches by framing a table-cloth her grand-grand mother embroidered years ago and added soft, textured curtains.

Via the wonderful DesignSponge

Jacqueline Morabito

We should all have heroes, people who inspire us to be more creative and adventurous, whose vision of life, achievements, talents encourage us to better ourselves and get out of our comfort zone.
For me, it is French Interior Designer Jacqueline Morabito. Someone I've always admired the work when I was going through my mum's interiors magazines as a child and the kind, smiling person person I met last Summer...

My meeting with Jacqueline Morabito...read on
New house by Jacqueline Morabito...read on
My Design Hero: Jacqueline Morabito...read on
Morabito in polish magazine...read on
Morabito in polish magazine...read on
Morabito in Japan...read on
Jacqueline Morabito's house...read on
Jacqueline Morabito official site...read on
Jacqueline Morabito designs at BODIE and FOU concept store...read on