leading the conversation the exchange. april 2016

BLUE CRUSH Sarah Lavoine at her TRACKED ofce on ’s rue Saint-Honoré. “I don’t design interiors to be photographed,” she says. “I want them to SARAH be comfortable.” LAVOINE A mixture of contemporary and traditional style is this French interior designer’s signature.

BY REBECCA VOIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY BY YOUNG-AH KIM

NE GRAY MORNING in Paris, a crackling fire- place makes Sarah Lavoine’s apartment feel more like a cozy country house than the res- idence of an in-demand interior designer. In Ofact, Lavoine, 43, moved in last week; this is the latest in a string of Saint-Honoré–area apartments for her. It already feels lived in: Family photos are propped against walls, and her son Roman, 8, is hoverboarding over the parquet. “I don’t like total looks. You have to be daring. If a green mirror doesn’t work, don’t hesi- tate to paint it white,” she says. Lavoine has called Saint-Honoré—in the heart of Paris’s Right Bank—home since she married French singer Marc Lavoine almost 21 years ago. Just upstairs is her ofce, on the same floor where her 18-year- old daughter, Yasmine, has her own place. There’s another, larger ofce down the street. Roman and Milo, Lavoine’s 5-year-old son, attend school within walking distance, and many of her close friends, like French Vogue editor Emmanuelle Alt, work nearby. Around the corner from Colette, one of her favorite local shops, is Lavoine’s latest project, the Le Roch Hotel & Spa, which is set to open this spring. A year after lycée, at 19, Lavoine left to study acting with Lee Strasberg in New York City. Back home a couple of years later, she interned with her mother, interior designer Sabine Marchal. “Learning on the job was the best school,” says Lavoine, who also inher- ited her creative eye from her father, Jean Poniatowski, who headed French Vogue from 1981 to 1995. Since launching her own firm in 2002, Lavoine has opened two Parisian stores and produced a range of home furnishings; she now employs a team of 20. She also designs a collection for French porcelain house Bernardaud, which is featured at Barneys New York. (Also on her docket is the future headquar- ters of L’Oréal Luxe; a new home furnishings shop for Printemps department store; and the upcoming English edition of her second book on style, Chez Moi: Decorating Your Home and Living Like a Parisienne.) “Every assignment is diferent. You have to adapt,” she says. “I love adapting to my clients. My job is to make people happy and to help them live well.” >

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9:00 a.m. 13 Cofee and catching up on calls in her new apartment, while sons Roman moves and Milo prepare for tennis lessons. in the past 20 years, all within Paris’s Saint-Honoré neighborhood. 500 vinyl records Played mostly by Lavoine’s husband, Marc, whose first hit album was in 1985. 1 statue outside the Louvre of Lavoine’s ancestor Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski, a Polish leader whom Napo- 11:15 a.m. leon named a Marshal of the French Empire. Lavoine visits the site of her latest project, the 37-room Le Roch Hotel & Spa in the first 10:03 a.m. arrondissement, set to open A color meeting with this spring. 322 the design team. emails received on a recent day—not unusual for the very busy Lavoine. 1:25 p.m. Lavoine’s store on Saint- Roch ofers furniture, lighting and porcelain. 240 framed works by the French artist Fabrice Hyber in Lavoine’s ofce and country house. 924 gallons of paint used on job sites over the past year.

2:10 p.m. 4 Edouard Renevier, sales director iPhones for her brand, checks in at her casual, purchased per year. “Between calls, text book-lined ofce. messages, emails and Instagram, I use them up very quickly,” she says. 6:00 p.m. Lavoine enjoys an after-work aperitif at Le Nemours, a Palais-Royal favorite. 1 month The amount of time she dated Marc before they got engaged; they’ve been married for almost 21 years. 3:10 p.m. Under the circus tent with her husband, Marc, 50,000+ for the Bonpoint fall 2016 fashion show, in miles traveled which her sons, Roman last year, for work and family trips to loca- and Milo, modeled. tions including Tulum and Marrakech. š

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