French luxury home decor brands turn their attention to Indian market

Over 30 luxe interior design brands from France showcased their creations to tap a new and growing class of rich Indians

A jellyfish-inspired chandelier hangs from the ceiling of an ornately decorated exhibition space in Bikaner House, New Delhi. It lights up a luxuriously laid out dining table that has a richly embroidered runner on it. Panels embroidered in gold with flower and bird motifs, and ones celebrating the evolving styles of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, one of the earliest exponents of French neoclassical architecture, are tastefully placed in the room.

The displays are part of “Art de Vivre à la Française”, a luxury home decor and furnishing exhibition, which last week brought 30-odd French interior firms to showcase their creations in India – a market ripe for the luxury sector, with its new and growing class of rich individuals who seek a lifestyle that blends classic with modern.

So, having travelled to cities including Tokyo, Berlin, Abu Dhabi, Beijing, New York and Singapore, all evolved luxury markets, Art de Vivre à la Française chose Delhi. Among the exhibitors was Galeries Lafayette, the upmarket French department store chain that is expected to make its India debut through Mumbai and Delhi in the near future. 

From architects and interior designers like Wilmotte and Associés, premium bedding manufacturers like André Renault, names synonymous with decorative panelling such as Féau Boiseries, and Parisian tableware and crystal houses like Christofle, it covered the whole gamut of interior design.

Régis Mathieu, the creative mind behind the jellyfish chandelier, which costs upwards of Rs 1 crore, notes how drastically the Indian luxury landscape has changed. “When I started coming to India 25 years ago, I would get to sell one chandelier a year. Now, I sell one a week,” says the owner of the south France-headquartered French luxury lighting firm Mathieu Lustrerie. 

Mathieu’s works adorn the Palace of Versailles, the Opéra Garnier and the Louvre in France, and closer home, the Laxmi Vilas Palace in Vadodara, Gujarat. He has also designed for Tarun Tahiliani, the Piramals and the Ambanis, and was recently in Jamnagar for the pre-wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, where his chandeliers added to the glitz.

Today, his clientele in India is no longer restricted to the traditional rich class. He is increasingly catering to the “new maharajas”, a term he has used in past interviews to describe an evolving rich class that is well-travelled, has taste and style, and a keen desire to live a comfortable, classy life.

Unlike their parents, who would buy a chandelier for the living room where they’d entertain guests, this generation wants to own things that they themselves can enjoy, observes Mathieu. So, they invest in these lighting artworks not just for the living room, but also for their bedrooms, bathrooms or patios. Mathieu, who besides designing, restores, reproduces and sources chandeliers, some of which date back to the 18th century, customises them to demand.

Bespoke is the keyword in this space, adds Guillaume Féau, director, Féau Boiseries, which specialises in panelling. “Unlike in the US or Europe, where people might ask for a full French house, in India, people like to do a mix of art deco and classic – a modern look with a classical touch,” says Féau. He modifies his approach accordingly.

India has changed a lot in the past few years, says Alexis de Ducla, director of Mathieu Lustrerie, who has been representing a few French luxury brands in the country for the last 15 years. “It has evolved, and rapidly so.”

Indians are looking for more than flaunting a Louis Vuitton handbag or turning up in Jimmy Choos or Pradas and Guccis. “They are much better informed; they know what they can get in India and what they can’t,” says de Ducla. “In luxury, they want to own something not just for its functionality, but because it is a piece of art in itself.”

India is rapidly being identified as a growing market for luxury brands from around the world. However, it is yet to be celebrated as a producer of globally recognisable luxury brands.

That will happen too; it’s only a matter of time, says Féau. “Besides, for us in Europe, our home markets are very small, so we have to look outwards to countries like the US, China and now India,” he says, and then adds, laughing, “India’s domestic market is huge. Its luxury brands do exceedingly well even if they focus on the home market. And then only if they have time left would they think of looking outwards.”