India Mahdavi facts for kids
India Mahdavi (born April 4, 1962) is a famous architect and designer. She is from both Iran and France. For over 20 years, India Mahdavi has created amazing spaces. She designs hotels, works with luxury brands, and even has her own furniture.
People often call her the "queen of color." Mahdavi is known for her fun and colorful designs. Her projects include hotels like the Hotel du Cloitre in Arles and the Monte Carlo Beach in Monaco. She also designed the Coburg Bar in London and the Townhouse Hotel in Miami.
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India Mahdavi's Early Life and School
India Mahdavi was born in 1962 in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Her father was Persian, and her mother was English-Egyptian. She spent her early years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.
Her love for color started when she was young. She enjoyed Disney movies, Bugs Bunny, and Peanuts cartoons. Even the colorful foods in her lunchbox inspired her. She once said that her early life in America was "a time of very strong colors."
India grew up in the United States, Germany, and France. Her background and travels greatly influenced her work. She studied architecture at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, France, from 1980 to 1986. Later, she studied furniture design at Parsons in New York. She also learned graphic design at the School of Visual Arts.
After her studies, Mahdavi met a restaurant owner named Jonathan Morr. He wanted to open a hotel on a small budget. This hotel became the Townhouse Hotel in Miami. India went to Miami to see it and became the designer for all 80 rooms. This was one of her first big projects. It helped her start her career in interior design.
India Mahdavi's Design Career
After finishing her studies, India Mahdavi went back to France. She worked as the artistic director for Christian Liagre for seven years. In 1997, she decided to start her own business. Today, she has her own design studio, a showroom, and a shop. All of them are close to each other on Rue de Cases in Paris.
Designing Hotels and Restaurants
Before opening her studio in 2000, Mahdavi worked on the Townhouse Hotel in Miami in 1999. She used a lot of white with bright colors. This made the hotel feel like an "endless summer" getaway. This first hotel showed her main idea: using rich, bold colors that stay popular over time.
After the Townhouse Miami, Mahdavi designed many restaurants and bars. These include the Condesa DF Hotel in Mexico City and Le Germain in Paris. Le Germain's restaurant is famous for a 5-meter-tall statue of a woman. It also has a private cinema for 30 people. Mahdavi used different materials to give these places a unique feel.
She also designed the famous Laduree restaurants in Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Geneva. Each Laduree location has a design and soft pastel colors. These colors are inspired by the style of Marie Antoinette.
In 2014, Mahdavi designed the Sketch Restaurant in London. This restaurant changes its design every two years. Many people, including India herself, say it's the most shared restaurant on Instagram. Mahdavi wanted people to feel like they were in a movie when they visited. The walls are covered with 250 drawings by artist David Shrigley.
Retail and Home Designs
India Mahdavi has also designed many retail stores and homes. Because Sketch was so popular, she got chances to design stores for Tod's and RedValentino. She included her own furniture pieces in these stores. Her home designs are also full of color and fun, just like her stores and hotels.
Creating Furniture
Soon after starting her studio, Mahdavi began designing furniture. She opened three showrooms on Rue Las Casas in Paris. The first opened in 2003, followed by two more in 2011 and 2020. These showrooms display her furniture and different art setups. Her furniture lines started small in 2003. Then, in 2011, she created "Petits Objets" (Small Objects). This collection includes many useful and decorative pieces. They all feature Mahdavi's signature colorful style.
Exciting Collaborations
As India Mahdavi became more well-known, she had chances to work with other designers and brands. In all these projects, you can see her unique rich colors and patterns. One of her first collaborations was with JEM, a jewelry designer, in 2011. She used architectural ideas to create tiny gold jewelry.
After this, India worked with many other brands. She created ceramics, hardware, and tiles. Some important projects include designs for Louis Vuitton and Nespresso. In 2019, she even created a paint line with 56 shades with Meriguet-Carrère. In 2020, she worked with Longwy Enamels. They decorated her famous Bishop stools with beautiful flower designs.
Her work with Cogolin in 2015 and De Gournay wallpaper in 2020 shows how her style goes beyond her own designs. She uses these collaborations to explore new ideas and materials. Each project is a new design chance for her.
India Mahdavi's Style and Impact
Her Unique Style
India Mahdavi's designs mix elegance with fun, cartoon-like colors. She says her background, travels, and design studies shaped her style. Designer Yann Le Coadic said that every detail in her spaces is carefully planned. Yet, the overall look feels very natural. India focuses on how people will live in a space, not just how it looks.
India describes herself using the French word "metissage." This means a mix of cultures. She says, "I am a pure product of the Middle East... but I actually got to know my homeland much later." She felt emotional about discovering her roots later in life. She wondered how she could bring those elements into her work today.
People call her the "queen of color" because she uses playful colors in all her designs. Ralph Pucci, who displays her furniture, says her work has humor but is not silly. It is sophisticated but not boring. This perfect balance makes her work truly original.
Her Impact on Design
One of Mahdavi’s most famous projects is Sketch at the Gallery of London. This design made her a social media star. The restaurant was covered in a velvety pink color. Even her own "Charlotte" armchair was pink.
Mahdavi said about the restaurant's huge popularity, "I don’t want to sound like I’m boasting, but I changed the way people thought about pink." When asked about her legacy, she replied, "I will probably be remembered as someone who uses color as her own language. The language of freedom. And that is fine with me."
The success of Sketch on social media shows her impact. The cool yet bright pink space attracted thousands of visitors. People came just to take the perfect picture and share it online.
How India Mahdavi Gets Her Ideas
When India Mahdavi designs, she gets ideas from places and her background. She says she is "polyglot and polychrome." "Polyglot" means she gets ideas from many different cultures and places. "Polychrome" means she is "like a chameleon, always changing color."
When she picks colors for a design, Mahdavi says she likes "when colors swear at each other." This means she likes colors that are bold and stand out next to each other. To get her cartoon-like style, she uses bright colors and matte, flat materials. She prefers velvet over cotton or linen. Velvet helps to absorb the colors she uses.
Mahdavi believes that "now the only way to be really original is to go to your own library." This means she looks for inspiration in less common places. For example, she finds ideas from her birthplace, Tehran, Iran. Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed says Mahdavi's work is "a form of childlike and joyous orientalism inspired by Iran." He thinks she has created a magical image of the East.
Even though her Sketch design was a big hit on social media, India Mahdavi says social media does not influence her work. Instead, she says her Instagram-worthy spaces come from her love for movies. India Mahdavi loved films when she was growing up. At 17, she watched movies three times a day. She especially studied how the scenes looked. When she started architecture school, she thought about designing movie sets. Now, as a designer, Mahdavi says she "trained her [my] eye to work like a camera."
Awards
- Officier des Arts et des Lettres 2015 (This is a special award from the French government for arts and literature)
- Architectural Digest's 2014 AD100 list (A list of the top 100 architects and designers)
- AD Spain's AD Award 2014
- Designer of the Year by Maison et Objet 2004
Images for kids
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Mahdavi's design of Sketch
