My name is Mathilde, I'm 30 years old and I live in a small town in the Hautes-Alpes. I create content on social networks where I talk about fashion, decoration, and my cat. Lots of my cat.
What is your relationship to objects and what place does decoration have in your daily life?
I clearly attach enormous importance to the decoration of my apartment. Already because I work there and also because I am often alone there because of my husband's job; so for me it is essential that I feel good in my interior.
I also see decoration as a field of expression of personality, I spend a lot of time making sure that my apartment is warm and welcoming and is, in a way, a reflection of my personality.
Our interior is a marriage that I hope is harmonious of what I like, what my husband likes, and what we like together which makes up a whole that is a little atypical but which we adore. I believe that our interior is ultimately very similar to who we are as a couple.
Overall I like objects, but especially those that have a story, or those that challenge, atypical objects that catch the eye, and that really give soul to an interior. The ones you don't see anywhere else.
To build my decoration, I like to take the time to find the right room, to hunt around, to think, to ask myself if the object of my desire will just fit there in this apartment, or if it will also go to the next move. . I don't like at all the idea of thinking everything for one apartment and changing everything to the next one. Obviously I always change a few little things depending on my environment, the layout of the space, the constraints specific to each dwelling, but ultimately I play more on the paintings, the wallpapers than on the objects which remain the same. one move to another. I want my house to be in a decoration magazine, but I don't want it to look like a decoration catalog. Small nuance. So the accumulation of small objects that we change each season is very little for me.
As far as my attachment to objects is concerned, it's quite particular, it really depends on the history of the object much more than its value. I will have much less trouble parting with my beautiful zodiac mirror, for example, which I bought for an aesthetic point of view, whereas I could never part with a small frame of the holy virgin that I offered my mom and which has enormous sentimental value.
Where does your relationship to objects and decoration come from?
I know it's not very original, but it comes to me from my parents who are two very elegant people and who knew how to pass on to their children a taste for beautiful interiors, of course, but also for beauty in general.
I moved around a lot when I was little, and sometimes we only stayed in the same place for a short time, but whatever the duration of the transfer, my parents always made it a point of honor that we were well settled. , and even for short years I always grew up in fully decorated houses , where Mom changed the frames, the curtains, the cushions, according to the environment. Our apartments, houses, were always clean and tidy, with fresh flowers. I couldn't see myself living in an apartment that wasn't just as welcoming the day I took off. My dad also took me to flea markets a lot and I often saw him buy beautiful paintings from my mom, or hunt for antique furniture , especially at the Swiss village in Paris.
Then growing up I was especially passionate about fashion but while continuing to ask for small decorations at Christmas for example, and always enjoying spending hours looking at decoration magazines and dreaming in front of beautiful houses. And then finally I find that the world of fashion and decoration are quite complementary in the sense that the two are a playground for expressing your personality and your creativity.
Do you feel that you are changing in your tastes? If so, in what sense?
Yes and no. I would say that my style is evolving in the sense that I don't have the same means as when I was a student for example, nor the same space to express my creativity. I'm also less afraid to take risks, maybe because I know I'll never live in one place for long because of my husband's job, or maybe just because I'm more confident in my tastes. . Of course I sometimes get tired of certain things, often when they become too trendy and I see them too much everywhere, but as far as my passion for mixed prints, vintage and improbable combinations is concerned, I think I can say that it makes gone from my DNA long enough that that isn't changing anytime soon.
Tell me about your “heart object”:
What is this object? Why did you choose to tell us about this one in particular?
It was difficult to choose because almost all the objects in my house have a story. But I chose to talk about Bruce because it's really the object that makes me the happiest in this apartment. It is also the only object that has a name in this house because I reassure you, I did not baptize my coffee cups : it is a small stuffed fruit bat that sits on my bookshelf and that I love it, not to say that I love it, outright.
For people who follow me on the networks it is not a secret; I have a passion for sharks. To tell you when I was little, my dream was to have a swimming pool with a shark in it. I've scaled back my ambitions a bit since I don't have a pool, but I have Bruce.
How did he come into your life?
One day we were walking with my husband in the Panier district in Marseille and we saw this cabinet of curiosities in which we entered because we love this type of place . So we walk in, and there I see Bruce, straight up, and I know he knows I want him. Except it was the end of the month, otherwise it's not funny, and I was broke. My husband saw what I had seen and he gave me Bruce. And I was really, really like a kid, and even today I show it to people who come to my house all the time and the excitement is still just as strong.
What bitch are you?
That day, we hadn't really gone out to hunt, but it's true that when we walk, we like going to flea markets, at Emmaüs, in garage sales, without necessarily looking for something in particular. We almost go antiquing as we go to the museum, for the pleasure of the eyes. And from time to time when we are looking for something specific we go around our favorite addresses to find the right piece, but since we live in a small town I mostly hunt from my couch and online.
Imagine, we are in August 2023, would you be accompanied by the same object?
Obviously ! Except if the cat has broken it but normally it is forbidden to climb on the library, otherwise yes. Unless in the meantime someone offered me another shark...
Your Chinese portrait of objects:
What item would you take to a desert island?
I would have liked to say my husband, but we can't really consider him as an object I think, so I would say a huge decoration book like those from Assouline, to read and reread for inspiration or escape.
If you had to reincarnate yourself as an object, which one would it be?
Something a little improbable, which isn't much use but which intrigues, makes people talk, and gives character to an interior, something you find in a cabinet of curiosities, in Bruce?
If you had to keep only one object at home?
The Murano chandelier in my dining room. Because I managed to convince my husband to let me buy it once, I'm not sure I'll pull it off a second time. And because it was such a hassle to hang it up that I don't think I can take it off anyway!
Which object best represents you?
Something a little quirky, original and at the same time a little classic and an object that meets all these criteria in my house would be my parrot lamp from Klevering. I love it.
What object could you forget in a move? #whoops
So I moved less than a year ago and at that time I already did a hell of a lot of sorting so I think you should rather ask my husband the question and that he would certainly say a painting that I made of a lion that sits on the fireplace. She has a very very childish side, which means that no one dares to ask me if it was not one of my nephews who did it. I like objects that intrigue. But I don't think my husband would cry if we lost him in the next move.
What object that you do not (yet) own would you dream of having?
A bedspread from That Rebel House, a brand that I have just discovered and that makes me want to blow the budget.
Bonus question: can you think of a person who would have a lot to tell me?
@constance.au.pays.de.bambi, the queen of decoration. Far ahead of me!
