Leaning back into that sweet puff
“As a girl I just lapped up American and French films and cartoons. They fascinated me, as they let me dream,” recalls native Iranian designer India Mahdavi, who lives in Paris. With her interior designs for hotels, restaurants and stores she seeks to whisk the guests away into a fairytale world between the West and the Orient, perfectly in line with her own biography. And she’s created just such a world for her latest project, a café for the famous macaroon Pâtisserie Ladurée, which is lodged in the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. She describes the interior architecture with the words: “Here, Marie Antoinette and Alice in Wonderland meet, in a garden of delights.”
As with her other projects, for the Ladurée in Geneva she also designed the furniture and luminaires: In all three zones – the pâtisserie with the sales counter, the “Mont Rose” salon and the “Étoile” salon – rose and green mingle, accentuated by a milky white. In the entrance area with the pâtisserie gracious two-seaters with curved backrests and little tables invite you to sit down and indulge yourself in the one or other macaron. Together with brass strips, the diamond-shaped black and white floor tiles, and the wall decorations, they convey a touch of Art Deco. And the unusual mixture of colors, which definitely has an appetizing feel to it, also kindles shoppers’ desire for macaroons – and they’re available at Ladurée in any number of colors. And specially for the store opening were to be had as an India Mahdavi special collection in green, white, pink, ivory and black.
The two salons open onto the right of the store and there you can really devote yourself to the beauty of fine baking: In the “Mont Rose” salon the design of the entrance is repeated, with armchairs and sofas dressed up in pink velvet, ribbed pillars and even a rosette (a miniature cake cast in ceramic!) as a detail. This turns into the eye-catcher in the round “Étoiles” salon, which wears green. Sketches of macarons on the wallpaper bring to mind small stars, the étoiles, flickering on a green night sky. Round wall luminaires cast soft moonlight over the scene. Now all that is needed is a human-sized rabibit serving macaroons and a hatter jumping madly over the tables. And the dream would be perfect.
Rue-du-Mont-Blanc 1, Geneva
Opening hours: from 8 am to 11 pm
