THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Each room in this Parisian family home reveals a different world - and is testament to the vision of its polymath creative and entrepreneur owner Ramdane Touhami

- RACHEL LEEDHAM

Picture the craftsmen’s emphatic Gallic shrugs when Ramdane Touhami first presented them with the plans for the drawing room of his family’s new home in Paris’ 9th Arrondissement. The maverick French-Moroccan designer and entrepreneur, who runs his own creative agency, tasked them with panelling the walls with ebony burl; but the panelling needed to appear to peel away in the corners to reveal traditional mouldings – suggesting another world behind this world. ‘It was pretty complex to produce,’ acknowledges Ramdane of a process that involved soaking the wood for two months in order to achieve the precise curl he had in mind.