BRIGHTEN up

Celebrity designer Laura Gonzalez works her playful magic on a Parisian apartment.

- IAN PHILLIPS

When French interior designer Laura Gonzalez started to design the principal bedroom of this 250 square metre apartment in Paris’s 16th arrondissement her initial intent was to create a “very gentle, peaceful” atmosphere. “I wanted it to feel like a floating cloud,” she says. She installed a number of low-key elements – a natural bullrush rug, a Soho Home leather ottoman, and a pair of burlwood tables by Rose Uniacke. Then, she recalls, she got the urge to be a little more expressive. “I couldn’t help myself,” she laughs. “I had to add something.” That “something” turned out to be fabric on the wardrobe doors by Jack Lenor Larsen with a geometric pattern and, for the bed, a plaid with a panther motif. “Since I started working for Cartier four years ago, I’ve become obsessed with panthers,” she says. The big cat is one of the legendary jeweller’s most enduring symbols.