For Art's Sake

- Ian Phillips

A couple of years ago, French interior designer Didier Gomez received a call out of the blue. It was concerning a storage unit he’d had in Normandy for some 20 years and had completely forgotten about. He couldn’t even recollect what was in it. It turned out to hold mainly a series of abstract geometric paintings he had acquired in his youth, but had never lived with. “I bought them simply because I liked them,” he says. “I couldn’t integrate them into the apartment I had at the time because there were so many windows and hardly any wall space.” When he finally unrolled them once more, he discovered works by the likes of Victor Vasarely, Donald Judd and Yiannis Moralis, and quickly made the decision to redecorate his Paris apartment around them.

Didier is one of France’s most respected designers. His CV speaks for itself. He opened a furniture boutique in the French capital in 1978, where one of his early clients was the actress Isabelle Adjani (she bought nine sofas in one go). He went on to design residences for Harrison Ford and Daniel Auteuil; boutiques, showrooms and offices for Yves Saint Laurent; the headquarters of Louis Vuitton; a perfume bottle for Giorgio Armani; and furniture collections for both Cinna and Ligne Roset. He also recently completed the ultra-stylish interiors of the ve-star Renaissance Paris République Hotel as well as a palace in Rabat for King Mohammed VI of Morocco. Currently on the drawing board are headquarters for L’Oréal, hotels in Angola and Malaysia, and a restaurant for three-star Michelin chef, Yannick Alléno.