La Carlière Normandy, House Visit
The 19th Century chateau of Peter Copping, Creative Director of Lanvin
La Carlière is the 15-century chateaux in Normandy that Creative Director of Lanvin Peter Copping shares with his husband, Rambert Rigaud, which inspires their collection of haute cushions & textiles.
Handmade from collected fabrics and textiles from around the world, the La Carlière cushions embody stories via motifs, colour, arrangement and detailing. Peter and Rambert live and work in Paris, and the chateau is their weekend and holiday home, a space they have renovated and decorated over the last thirteen years. At the beginning of this year, we were invited to spend a day at their chateaux...
We woke up before dawn and caught the train from Paris to Normandy to meet our makers. Our train immediately escaped out of the city and snaked through the French countryside, complete with church steeples and low fog across the hills.We arrived at the chateaux around mid-morning, and were taken through the iron gates and across the entrance garden to the first green sitting and dining room...
Upstairs, tea was served in Astier de Villatte mugs and accompanied by the most delicate marshmallows. We nestled into the room's densely upholstered couches, next to the open and blazing fire, and talked through their approach in creating La Carliere. Echoing our own Tessuti philosophy, the pair have achieved the look and feel of their home by slowly building, layer upon layer, collecting and searching for textiles, paintings, and furniture along their travels through Europe and India...
We were then invited to wander the chateaux as we wished, and that lunch would be served in an hour. So with great pleasure we took off to explore the guest bedrooms, bathrooms and other sitting rooms. The red room, made for his sister, lined in textile and equipped with a bathtub overlooking the garden, was a moment of envy. Farrow & Ball painted walls, in blue, pink, and green, were punctuated by tapestries, textile and painted artworks, indoor forced bulbs, collected objects such as ceramic bowls, Chinese lacquer boxes and handmade paper flowers.
The scent? Baies by Diptyque. The lunch? A starter of Pea and Ham soup served in a bright green soup terrine shaped as a pumpkin. Monte d'or cheese (melted in the oven for six minutes with white wine) to pour over perfect new season potatoes, served with a large bowl of crisp lettuce. And to finish, the most exquisite apple tarte baked by the local bakery, under very secret methods! And of course, black espresso.
After lunch we explored the garden, which was mostly asleep during the end of the winter, but the shape of it still remained... One can imagine the espalier pear trees laden with fruit, and the grassy meadow beyond the stone fountain swaying in the sun, or sitting in the "white garden" in a full bloom of roses and hydrangeas. The hedges, trimmed by Peter & Rambert and quintessential for any chateaux, created dark green anchor points and privacy around the property.
La Carliere confirmed for us what time can offer a home, the blending of what one needs and what one loves to be around, which, over the course of thirteen years, can create an aesthetic density, a combination of memories, aspirations, and joys — each a personal story that reflects the owners and their intimate world where comfort and pleasure collide.
View our collection of La Carlière by Peter Copping in store and online [HERE]