Interior designer Mary Shaw’s Paris apartment serves as both home and HQ for her constantly evolving collection of fabric, furniture and accessories
Mary Shaw has long been regarded as an individualist in Parisian design circles: when she first opened the doors of her apartment on the left bank in 1997, as a decorating showroom, a then-fashionable Paris interior was dressed head to toe in cream and beige Christian Liaigre. By contrast, Shaw – who, in her own words, has “always been more interested in atmosphere and style than fashion” – painted her walls damson, moss and lilac, covered antique Napoleon III armchairs with scrunchy Donegal tweeds and hung wisps of translucent linen voile over the floor-to-ceiling windows. While she may have lived in Paris for 30 years, Shaw is Irish by upbringing: colour and texture are part of her heritage. “I grew up with the colours of the Irish landscape – amber, plum, and mossy greens – and it was taken for granted that armchairs were upholstered in tweed and had loose linen covers for the summer.”
Shaw was brought up in the countryside of Co Down. She went on to study history and history of art at Trinity College Dublin and for several years was head of publicity and foreign press for Christie’s in London before she moved to Paris to marry a French banker. She has always been fascinated by Celtic art and Irish crafts and for a number of years designed Aran sweaters for the likes of Hermès. Her company Sequana (aptly, the Latin name for the Celtic water goddess who guarded the river Seine) was a natural progression – the perfect marriage of two cultures, a lifelong interest in her homeland and her love of France. “Sequana represents all that I love most about Ireland, a mixture of Celtic history and influences both traditional and modern,” she adds. By collaborating with craftsmen in both Ireland and France, she has produced inspired collections of fabrics, furniture and accessories. The emphasis is firmly on natural materials. Her latest venture is a range of hand-painted, leaf-patterned linens, which, like a breath of fresh air, bring the outside in and seem to sum up the very essence of Sequana.
The look is elegant, but relaxed – there is an updated country feel that adapts well to city living. Logs are piled by the fireplace, hats and walking sticks hang on the coat rack by the front door. The atmosphere is so cosy that when couples arrive together, the husband will often sit reading the paper by the fire while his wife peruses the books of tweeds and linens.The two elements of Irish tradition and Parisian sophistication are, it seems, perfectly at home together. Jackie Cole
Sequana, 64 Avenue de la Motte Picquet, 75015 Paris, 0033 1 45 66 58 40; www.sequana.net.
A l’École de Mary Shaw will be published by Éditions du Chêne (Hachette Livre) later this year.
