Gärna inaugurates a Decor house home

GÄRNA Studio inaugurates in Casa Decor a space that recreates the eccentric atelier of the Marquesa Casati, the great muse of the Belle Èpoque.

The architecture and interior design studio GÄRNA STUDIO  have created what could have been Marquesa Casati’s atelier, in this case for Casa Decor, which in this edition is located in Madrid, in a building dating from 1900, the date on which the Venetian aristocrat, famous for her eccentricity, lived.

Luisa Casati was the great muse of Belle Èpoque, inspiring all the poets, artists, designers and couturiers of her time. Her maxim was “I want to be a living work of art”, and she achieved it, becoming the third most portrayed woman in history, behind the Virgin Mary and Cleopatra. Picasso tells in his biography that decades after meeting her, he still remembered details of his famous festivities in his Venetian palace, which is today the Guggenheim Museum in Venice.

Greyhounds in jeweled chains, guests in surreal costumes or servants throwing copper filings into the saloon chimneys to keep the flames green or blue. Hence the presence of a large marble fireplace, designed by GÄRNA STUDIO, for his space, in allusion to his palace in Venice.

The Marquise Casati was a sophisticated and feminine woman, but not in a conventional way, which provoked a revolution in her time. Passionate about fashion, it was Fortuny’s muse who created the famous Delphos dress for her. Later designers like Chanel, Dior or Alexander McQueen have been inspired by her for their collections.

GÄRNA STUDIO, a specialist in rehabilitation, chose a salon that preserves the original elements of the building, such as the iron columns and moldings of the time. Respecting these elements, she reinforces them with contemporary interior design. GÄRNA STUDIO has designed for the occasion a spectacular ArtDeco-inspired dressing table, made entirely of brass, excessive like the Marquesa Casati herself, “a jewel inside a jeweler, an excess, a waste, opulence of the 21st century, a useless sculpture full of meaning at the same time”, defines Laura Gärna.

This space includes an 18th-century Japanese lacquer screen and a marvelous ostrich feather lamp as a symbol of the protagonist’s exotic journeys through Asia and the East. In the end, Grillo Demo’s “Donna Laura” sums up the essence and soul of this fascinating woman and, in a way, GÄRNA STUDIO’s passion for art. All this, wrapped by black walls, the Marquesa’s favorite.

The La Condesa brand has also donated pieces from its URO collection, inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s film Dracula, and Tolentino participates with two impressive handcrafted headdresses, common to those that the eccentric aristocratic wore at her parties.

On the other hand, GÄRNA STUDIO collaborates in this space with the sophisticated fragrance brand Serge Lutens, owned by the Shiseido Group, which evokes the aroma that the Marquise Casati could have chosen for her atelier. “The L’Eau fragrance is clean, durable and romantic. It’s a breath of fresh air, very much in tune with the contribution we wanted to make at Casa Decor,” says Laura Gärna.