While Roitfeld is a leading voice in fashion—she served as editor in chief of Vogue Paris from 2001 to 2011, now produces the biannual magazine, CR Fashion Book, has recently put out Fantasies: The Carine Roitfeld Fashion Book (Rizzoli), which is a compilation of 10 years of CR archives, and has created several perfumes, including the 7 Lovers genderless collection, Carine, and her latest, Forgive Me—she knows the interiors world well. Her mother was an antiques dealer who “would go to flea markets at 5 a.m. with a flashlight, coffee, and croissants in the dark,” she says. Through this experience, Roitfeld developed an eye for decor. And she’s now moving more firmly into the space with the Carine Roitfeld Home Collection of candles, matches, and home fragrances, all in black, naturally.
Her interiors expertise also made for a collegial collaboration with Hervier. “We knocked down everything,” she says, and configured the empty rectangle into a large living/dining room overlooking one of Paris’s most famous luxury shopping streets; a “little kitchen,” as she describes it (“She’s more Coco Chanel than Paul Bocuse,” quips Hervier); a bath and WC; and a bedroom in the back that is supremely quiet. “It’s like an American caravan,” she says. “Exactly what I need, and I don’t need much.”
For the decor, Roitfeld wanted a ’70s vibe, inspired by Pierre Paulin’s mod redo of the Élysée Palace for President Georges Pompidou and his wife, Claude, in 1972. To evoke that louche cool, Roitfeld and Hervier selected key pieces by Rizzo, a celebrated photojournalist who, in the 1970s, took a break to try his hand at furniture design. “J’adore Willy Rizzo,” she says.
They filled in with 21st-century creations, including pieces by her friend, the Paris-based American designer Rick Owens, and tables from Jean-Guillaume Mathiaut for Carine Roitfeld, a collection of oak furniture she conceived with the acclaimed French sculptor and which is distributed by Hervier. “Brutalism, with sophistication,” Hervier says.
“It gives the apartment a bit of a rock feel,” Roitfeld says.
For her cave-like bedroom, with walls in black Japanese paper—which Hervier bought in its natural state and painted a very specific black “because we couldn’t find paper in the right black,” he explains—she has a custom-made black leather bedcover. “I like black because it’s easy—everything goes well with it, and you see the details,” she explains. “It’s perfect for my taste.”