WOULD YOU WEAR THIS ROOM?

Fashion designer and serial renovator Amélie Dian brings her stylish eye to the design of an 18th-century apartment in the heart of Paris.

- By ELISA LIPSKY-KARASZ

For most people, moving homes is something to be avoided at all costs. Settling down is the goal, even if it means sometimes having to settle. But for Parisian fashion designer Amélie Dian, it’s an exciting quest for the best—and an excuse to visit the flea market in Saint-Ouen. She has moved more than 15 times over the past couple of decades. "I changed lives several times, that’s why," she says.

Creative projects are her vocation: She co-founded the rock ’n’ roll–infused brand Zadig & Voltaire in the late ’90s before stints at Kenzo and Comptoir des Cotonniers, as well as consulting projects for LVMH. Recently she succeeded the late Lucien Pellat-Finet at his eponymous cashmere brand (her first collection appears this fall).

She is the type of effortlessly chic French woman who runs around in relaxed jeans and a sharply tailored jacket, with spotless Celine sneakers and perfectly mussed blond hair. She is equally adept at snagging the best seat at the corner café as at spotting the best pieces at the auction house Drouot.

The living room's custom sectional is in a Dedar fabric, the Gino Sarfatti lamp is from Galerie Kreo, and the artwork is by Kim Yong-ik.

So when she walked into an 18th-century building in the genteel 7th Arrondissement in 2023, she knew she had found something extraordinary. Behind heavy, chipped wooden doors was a cobblestone courtyard and a crumbling but sweeping staircase; it climbed to a small apartment on the second floor. The petite entrance belied what lay behind: a grand double-height salon with huge windows overlooking a jasmine-filled garden.