ELEGANTLY ECLECTIC

The Rome abode of designers Antea Brugnoni Alliata and Marco Kinloch Herbertson has been brought to life with evocative chinoiserie and graceful colours

- JO LEEVERS

From their apartment on the top floor of a Roman palazzo, Antea Brugnoni Alliata and Marco Kinloch Herbertson have views over the city’s medieval heart. But for Antea, raising her gaze above the jumbled line of rooftops can be equally inspiring. ‘I’m constantly fascinated by the light here and the intense blue of the sky,’ she says. ‘In the south of Italy, a white haziness creeps in, but here it often remains this colour all day, emphasising the beauty of the city.’

This fascination with colour, combined with a deep love of pattern, is evident throughout the elegant spaces of Antea and Marco’s 16th-century apartment. Together they run Roi du Lac, creating wallpapers, homeware and clothes adorned with other-worldly scenes that start life as intricate watercolour paintings by Marco and are often inspired by the Eastern traditions of chinoiserie and japonaiserie.

Naturally, their own palazzo home has become their decorative playground, where their designs have been used on a grand scale. ‘The apartment came with its own grandeur but it needed a sense of our personality, so that it felt like our home when we walked in,’ explains Antea. The result is a style that is a match for the Roman setting but with added exoticism, with wallpapers depicting birds taking flight above stylised branches of cherry blossom and peacocks perching amid chinoiserie lattices.