Beauty Brand Sisley Paris' Co-Founder Reveals Her Magnificent Personal Spaces In New Book

The eclectic apartment of Countess Isabelle d’Ornano on the Quai d’Orsay, on the Left Bank in Paris, is one of the spectacular private spaces featured in the book.

For the first time, Countess Isabelle d ’Ornano, co-founder of French beauty brand Sisley-Paris, offers a glimpse behind the doors of her magnificent personal spaces in the breathtaking book What a Beautiful World! (La Martinière/Abrams). The 256-page tome curated by d ’Ornano and Christiane de Nicolaÿ-Mazery, artistic director for Christie’s France, is packed with 240 stunning photographs by French interiors expert Christina Vervitsioti-Missoffe. The spectacular spaces captured range from Paris and London apartments to a country house in the Pays de la Loire to the Paris headquarters of Sisley, which d ’Ornano created with her husband, Hubert.

“When we created Sisley, we wanted our homes, both in Paris and in the countryside, to be the reflections of our taste,” says d’Ornano. “We wanted beauty to be comfortable and inspiring.”

Ancient and contemporary works blend harmoniously in an entry at the Paris apartment.

The countess’s eclectic and elegant touch is everywhere—from the harmonious blend of ancient, aristocratic art and contemporary works to the messages on needlepoint pillows—written across everything from corridor walls to poems on the edges of mirrors. “I love words,” d ’Ornano says. “They carry messages and make us unique as human beings.”

Juxtapositions make for an equilibrium of contrasts as snails climb up patterned walls and family heirlooms mix with the more modern. In her most intimate space, her bedroom designed by Henri Samuel, d ’Ornano displays photos of her children, family weddings and engagements, as well as poems—creating a magical mélange of everything that makes life beautiful.

In the London apartment, a coffered ceiling is given a painterly treatment

“Hubert and I have had the blessing to be surrounded by the beauty in many ways, even in our business and our work,” says d ’Ornano, who, along with her family, has built an equally elegant beauty brand beloved for an authentic yet artful approach to everything. A beautiful world, indeed.