IN PICS | Parisian panache: Step into this skilfully curated Parisian abode

His new home is located to the east of central Paris, in a diverse and vibrant enclave in which, nevertheless, the atmosphere is not as frenetic as that of the centre. “It is a lively suburb,” he says, explaining that here he finds the happy medium that is “in between two contrasting states, the ‘overexcited’ centre and the ‘maybe-too-quiet’ countryside”.

Rundown and neglected when Normand bought it four years ago, the house has three floors and had been converted into office space for a number of small businesses — which meant it had neither a bathroom nor a kitchen. Attracted by its size and the few classic Parisian features the building still sported, he began on a renovation project that he describes as a work in perpetual progress. Much needed to be fixed and mended, and while Normand wished to preserve those heritage features of the original building that did remain, he was also not invest- ed in undertaking a very literal project of historical renewal.

So, some decorative mouldings and original features were preserved or restored, while others were removed. “I wanted space,” Normand says, describing the process through which he created a “fluid and more modern” feel on the main floor of the three-storey house. Here, all the interior doors were removed, turning seven small, separate rooms into intriguingly interleading spaces. Each opens seemingly naturally onto the next, adding a real feeling of flow to this part of the house.

A kitchen had to be added too, of course: this was done by fitting sleekly elegant floor-to-ceiling oak cabinets and integrated appliances into two of the interleading spaces. Through a slightly widened doorway from the sun-splashed dining area, the first part of the kitchen is primarily devoted to providing storage for Normand’s wide-ranging collections of crockery and glassware, while the room beyond contains cooking appliances and scullery accoutrements.

Any visitor who takes a quick peek inside those storage cupboards is provided with ample demonstration of Normand’s fine- tuned sense of “the charm of objects”. This anti-minimalist ethos is also very much a reflection of his interest in bringing together styles — and with them, moments in time — in ways that enable pieces and periods to speak to each other via both complementarity and contrast.

The result is a home that combines a dynamic élan with a laid-back atmosphere; and one that is ever-changing in terms of its interior design.

Perhaps most clearly emblematic of Nor- mand’s wide-ranging and ever-evolving aesthetic is his home office and library, a space tucked away upstairs that he describes as his favourite space in the house. It is crammed with hundreds of beautiful books — “They are like food to me,” he says — covering art, fashion, design and much more.

In his next home, he muses, looking forward as seemingly every vocational designer does to another new project, the library “might well be the focus”, given the space and time its contents occupy in his mind.

Above all, it is a sense of curiosity, and the quest for ever-evolving ways of living, that drives Normand’s aesthetic exploration. No wonder that a visitor to his home recalls Matisse’s Fauvist master- work, then — after all, Luxe, Calme et Volupté takes its name from the refrain of a Charles Baudelaire poem in which the speaker in- vites his lover to escape with him to an ex- quisite imaginary retreat. The one major difference? Normand’s refuge is real.