Understated excess

With “not too much by way of money but wondrous amounts of passion”, Faiza Seth made a go of design firm Casa Forma, she tells Abhilasha Ojha.

When we meet at The Lalit, Delhi, the temperature in the city has crossed 40° Celsius. But the hotel’s revamped coffee shop is bustling with people on the hot afternoon as Faiza Seth of Casa Forma, one of London’s premier interior design and architecture firms, and I settle down to tall glasses of fresh watermelon juice. She coaxes me to eat something as her manicured nails, coated with bright green nail paint, slide down the exhaustive menu card. We almost settle for some sandwiches but then forget about them simply because there’s so much to talk about.

Two things — no, make that three — have brought Seth to India in the sweltering heat. She’s here to get inspiration for jewellery designs, something that she’s branching out into, having invested “not too much by way of money but wondrous amounts of passion”. What sort of jewellery will it be? “It’s elegant and very wearable, in silver, rudraksh, kundan and precious stones,” she says. She is even willing to part with one of the designs: “Imagine a silver cage, inside which dangles a pretty rudraksh. That’s one of my favourite designs in earrings,” she laughs, her own pearl-and-diamond ones sparkling. Her interiors and architecture work, like her jewellery, is design-led.

Married for the past 10 years to her childhood sweetheart Pallak Seth (“My parents didn’t talk to me for two years because I was marrying out of my caste,” she shrugs), this 31-year-old was in Hyderabad — before stopping over briefly in Delhi — to finalise a land deal to start an orphanage with the help of her brother.

And what’s the third thing that brings her to India? “We are setting up the Casa Forma office in Delhi,” she says, smiling radiantly, and looking like a Janpath-here-I-come tourist incongruously encountered at a five-star hotel what with her simple yet elegant black, sleeveless top matched with black tights, a simple scarf draped casually around her neck.

Her dress reflects the design philosophy of her company Casa Forma — “it’s eclectic, functional, simple yet elegant” — especially as the company has, just two years into its existence, become a formidable name in interiors and architecture. It has changed the look of many homes, residential complexes, clubs and stores in London. The company is now also designing yachts. “It’s a completely a new arena, but we gained confidence when some of our clients approached us for yachts too,” she says.

Just what is Casa Forma’s design mantra? “There’s no trade secret, I can tell you,” she laughs heartily. “We, at Casa Forma, including my partner Luigi Esposito, keep the first layer of our design versatile and very neutral. By that we don’t mean that walls have to be slapped with a dull colour. No, we do experiment a lot with the walls, but in an understated way. That’s the canvas, you see, on which one can play with material, products and artifacts.”

What sets Casa Forma apart is the way it uses different materials. “We are very big on textures,” Seth says, showing me a catalogue of all the work done by her company, including one recently completed luxury residence. The promoters firmly believe in applying different textures on the walls. So, one wall of a room will be inlaid with mother-of-pearl, another covered with stretched raw silk (yes, you read that right!), and that in turn will face a mirror-on-mirror wall. A twin-level riverside penthouse spread over 12,000 sq ft and overlooking the Thames, for example, has walnut panels with beige-coloured natural fabric stretched out as part of the wall.

In another private residence in London’s Mayfair area (most projects take eight to 10 months easily), luxurious textures like mohair, silk and suede redefine elegance. “Our expertise lies in using rich materials, quality craftsmanship and bold textures, but giving a final look of very sophisticated elegance,” says Seth, turning every page of the Casa Forma catalogue carefully.

But isn’t maintenance of using “mostly organic material” as Seth explains, difficult? Casa Forma, after all, boasts of very unlikely materials fusing together: exquisite marble flooring, for example, is lined with oak wood border. But how is the look maintained over the years? Later, in an email interaction with Esposito, we find our answers: “Despite the fact that we are dealing with two different materials, we should treat them in the same way. Only water with a touch of soap (suitable for wood and stone) rubbed gently is actually more than enough to maintain the look.” What also makes the most complicated of textures last for a lifetime are also the resistant sealers which Casa Forma especially applies to enhance the durability of different materials. “From putting soaps in powder rooms, to delivering fresh flowers once every week, to coming periodically to clean and vacuum the house, we take care of everything,” says Seth who remembers having innumerable lunches and dinners with Esposito while he was designing her house when she first moved to London. “We shopped for candles, crockery and bathroom accessories together. It’s what we do even now with our clients,” she says.

So what are the current design trends according to Seth? “Bespoke furniture,” she says instantly talking about how Casa Forma has designed bespoke wardrobes to house a client’s collection of shoes, bags and jewellery, walk-in wardrobes built around a client’s height besides doing up even a dining suite with inlaid motifs to match the decor of the dining room. “One of our walk-in closets was designed for a young lady with a penchant for vintage designer clothing. I proposed a very interesting design and functionality where she could keep all the clothes, including her 350 pairs of shoes and handbags,” says Seth. While the main room had black lacquered wardrobes with floor-to-ceiling mirrored doors through which she could see her colour coordinated outfits, special drawers upholstered with natural suede took care of her handbags and clutch-bag collection.

Seth’s excited about her Delhi projects (“We are doing two homes in the city,” says she), another project in London (a 13th century building bought at a staggering cost of £8 million: “At Casa Forma, we do property development and property search too,” explains Seth), besides four other projects in UK. Having completed 10 projects in less than two years since Casa Forma was formed, Seth is raring to go.

After all, despite the quick success, it’s just the beginning for her.