Alain Stella – författare

Enter the rarefied universe of Jacques Garcia via his elaborately restored seventeenth-century château in Normandy depicted in stunning photography of the residence and extensive gardens.French interior designer and collector Jacques Garcia has dedicated the past thirty years to restoring the Château du Champ de Bataille, an expansive property in Normandy that has become one of France’s treasured houses of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture, furniture, and garden design. He populated its marble halls and elegant, baroque salons with a priceless collection of paintings, sculptures, porcelain, silver, and furniture, including many pieces that were originally housed in the collections of the French court. The vast gardens, probably designed by Le Nôtre, have been considerably expanded to include a hydraulic system rivaled only by that at Versailles, which supplies a prodigious system of fountains and reflecting pools. Classical temples, an outdoor antique theater, marble statuary, and garden follies enliven the alleyways alongside topiary sphinxes and fragrant bowers of roses and wisteria.

Pierre Frey, the leading French producer of furniture, textiles and wallcoverings, seamlessly combines artisanal craftsmanship with modernity.Enchanting brocades and damasks, luminous hand-woven silken velvets, traditional woodblock printed fabrics, striking contemporary patterns made into works of art: Pierre Frey, a family business founded in 1935, is famous for the variety and boldness of its inspired designs, and has asserted itself in the luxury market as the uncontested global leader in soft furnishing textiles and wallpapers. Having acquired the venerable houses Braquenié and Le Manach, Pierre Frey possesses one of the most important private textile heritages in the world. Pierre Frey has worked with the Louvre and the château de Versailles, decorated castle interiors, and provides the fabrics and wallpapers of elegant private homes around the world—from Paris to Hong Kong to New York. Drawing from their archives of more than 25,000 documents, which date from the sixteenth century to the present, this indispensable volume will serve as a reference and a basis for contemporary inspiration to professional and amateur designers.

Celebrate a century of Provençal elegance and craftsmanship through the colorful and whimsical world of Maison Fragonard, a historic perfumer and purveyor of lifestyle goods.Fragonard’s rich history in crafting luxurious perfumes and designing fanciful objects for the home is recounted in this beautifully illustrated book. An ode to the essence of a unique Provençal and Riviera lifestyle, it showcases Fragonard’s exquisite perfume bottle collections alongside stunning interiors, furniture, and tableware, and highlights a century of elegant design and craftsmanship. Lavishly photographed, it offers readers an exuberant glimpse into the timeless charm of the French art of living well.In the 1920s, as the beauty of the French Riviera began to entice a growing number of cosmopolitan tourists to France, Eugène Fuchs, a visionary businessman in Provence with a deep fascination for the world of fragrances, introduced a groundbreaking concept by selling perfume directly to visitors. He founded Maison Fragonard in Grasse in 1926, named in homage to the eighteenth-century painter, and launched a business dedicated to local cultural heritage and the refined elegance of the arts of the period. Fragonard opened perfume museums in Grasse and Paris in the 1970s to share the rich history of perfumery with a wide audience through its extensive collections and, in 2025, opened a textile museum in Arles to house its world-class collection of antique Provençal clothing.