Marie-Hélène de Taillac’s Jaipur home is a chromatic wonderland

Candy colours and a blue canvas transform the expat jewellery designer's home into a sweet treat

In the living room of French jewellery designer Marie-Hélène de Taillac’s Jaipur home, a Philippe Hurel sofa in raspberry-red Kvadrat wool stands out in a sea of powder blue. The silk pillows and cotton rug are by Idli, a Jaipur-based boutique.

French jewellery designer Marie-Hélène de Taillac discovered the magic of Jaipur and its jewel box of a hotel, Narain Niwas Palace, in 1989 while travelling across the subcontinent with friends. She was charmed by the beauty of the city, with its pink-painted dwellings, as well as its abundant creativity: “There’s a great sense of decoration and craftsmanship here. Even the rickshaws are painted with motifs. People know how to design and make things, and everything is possible.” It took her a while to realize that she was indeed hooked on Jaipur, but once she did, she committed to it profoundly.

Marie-Hélène de Taillac in her Jaipur home
Marie-Hélène de Taillac in her Jaipur home

Made in Jaipur

In 2008, de Taillac found herself spending less time in Jaipur since her son, Edmond, was enrolled in secondary school in Paris. Five years later, she gave up her house and moved into the Narain Niwas Palace, settling into a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the garden. “It’s a harbour of peace, with peacocks, birds, monkeys,” she says. “It’s India as I remember and love.” To transform her suite into something more personal, she enlisted the help of Dutch interior designer Marie-Anne Oudejans, a long-time friend, who also lives in the hotel. Structural changes happened first: the addition of a bathroom, the modernization of the kitchen. Then came colour. As de Taillac notes, “Colour is everywhere in Jaipur. Between blue and turquoise, there are 50 variations, and each has a name—some untranslatable because they don’t exist anywhere else.”

In the kitchen, Arne Jacobsen chairs surround a glass–and–lacquered-metal table.
Marie-Hélène de Taillac’s Jaipur home | In the kitchen, Arne Jacobsen chairs surround a glass–and–lacquered-metal table

Signature Blue

The dominant hue in her new home would be powder blue—her signature, which she uses in her boutiques as well as on her jewellery boxes. “It’s very calming and cooling,” she explains. And in the Indian heat, “I needed something cooling.” For her bedroom, she chose Jaipur’s hallmark shade of rose, “because my grandmother taught me your bedroom should always be a colour that makes you look beautiful in the evening light.” Many of the furnishings are pieces she had brought from Paris in the 1990s. Everything else she commissioned in Jaipur. “You can have fabrics printed or furniture made by the miller,” she says. “I call him and, two days later, I have it in my home, and the price is affordable. In Paris, that would never happen.”

Framed antique quilted textiles decorate the guest bedroom walls. The painted wood chairs and canopy bed are by Oudejans; the rug is by Ratan Textiles
Marie-Hélène de Taillac’s Jaipur home | Framed antique quilted textiles decorate the guest bedroom walls. The painted wood chairs and canopy bed are by Oudejans; the rug is by Ratan Textiles

Freedom of Provincial Jaipur

De Taillac now spends four to five months a year in Jaipur— usually January and February, maybe April, then September and October. Each day she rises with the sun, swims in the hotel pool, with the monkeys and birds rustling in the palms, then sets to work designing new pieces. Usually, she lunches on her terrace. “I have a cook, whom I have trained to do Italian, Moroccan, Lebanese, and a bit of French,” she says. At night, de Taillac dines either in the hotel’s Bar Palladio, also decorated by Oudejans, or at some charming place in the city, often with “people who come through town,” among them, friends such as designers Muriel Brandolini and Madeline Weinrib.

Winter months in Jaipur, she explains, can be very social. But there are what she describes as “austere moments”, from the end of April to the beginning of September, when the visitors retreat and she enjoys “a quiet time for great creativity.” What de Taillac loves most about her life in Jaipur is its slow pace—it is, in a sense, an antidote to ever-cosmopolitan Paris. “Jaipur is a small town in the provinces,” she says. “Life here is simple. There are three restaurants and two friends you always want to see, so you wind up not having to make decisions. It frees you up.”

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In the kitchen, Arne Jacobsen chairs surround a glass–and–lacquered-metal table.

In the kitchen, Arne Jacobsen chairs surround a glass–and–lacquered-metal table.

The master bath’s marble screen, stair rail and vanity were designed by Marie-Anne Oudejans. The mirrors are by Ecru.

The master bath’s marble screen, stair rail and vanity were designed by Marie-Anne Oudejans. The mirrors are by Ecru.

Framed antique quilted textiles decorate the guest bedroom walls. The painted wood chairs and canopy bed are by Oudejans; the rug is by Ratan Textiles

Framed antique quilted textiles decorate the guest bedroom walls. The painted wood chairs and canopy bed are by Oudejans; the rug is by Ratan Textiles


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