DRAWN BACK TO THE CITY OF LIGHT

After years as a global nomad, the illustrator Tatiana de Nicolay is savouring family life in her elegant home and taking inspiration from the beauty of Paris

- 

Tatiana de Nicolay is happy to be home. “Paris is in my DNA, and after years of moving around absorbing inspiration from everywhere, I wanted to anchor myself,” she says.

It takes just one glance around the illustrator and print artist’s apartment to know that she has succeeded. Not only does each room express her elegant, bohemian aesthetic, it feels like a canvas telling her story.

After a nomadic life that included spells in Belgium, Poland, Britain, Italy and India, Tatiana fell in love with fellow aristocrat Pierre d’Ormesson and the couple married in 2022.

Three years later she’s back in her native city and a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower with Pierre, their toddler son Amedeo and their beloved dog Chui. “So this has been a return for me, but also a new beginning,” she says.

The couple visited 35 properties in their search for the perfect family home, but when they saw this 19th-century beauty “something clicked”. Eight months of loving renovation followed, during which they paid as much attention to ambience as architecture, Tatiana tells us. The result? “Inviting someone in feels like sharing our universe,” she reveals.

Tatiana, what made you choose this place?

“It had a serene grandeur waiting to be revived. It seemed to whisper stories and I’ve always been drawn to spaces with soul.”

Which elements have you changed and which have you restored?