“A restaurant is not only an image,” she says. ![]() It was carefree, a period of lightness.” Today’s rich, tactile replacement is imbued with a serious tone that inevitably reflects a more introspective era. The whole restaurant glows.”įor those loyalists who simply can’t fathom the loss of plopping down in one of Mahdavi’s ladyfinger-shaped armchairs in the all-pink room of yore, there is a model on display capturing that surprising visual legacy.Īs beloved as Sketch’s playful past was, Mahdavi is quick to point out that it also symbolized an age “that stopped with Covid-19. The yellow is the color of sunshine, the color of Africa. Nowadays it’s a hugely popular spot, but the restaurant wasn’t an. We’re talking about sketch, Mayfair’s world-famous, three-storeyed dining emporium: home to multiple restaurants and bars, and arguably the capital’s most famous loos. “I wanted to respect Yinke’s work and not overpower it. Long before Instagram was even invented, London’s most Instagrammable restaurant already existed. At the Gallery, these pieces dialogue with Shonibare’s Dutch wax batik patterns and appliqué and embroidery techniques.īetween the textiles, metallic walls, and that soothing orange-tinged ceiling, the post-renovation Gallery “is an elegant, comfortable room,” says Mahdavi. “If anything, my work responds to Yinka’s through textures,” says Mahdavi, singling out her use of Senegalese fabrics by Dakar-based designer Aissa Dione and wall lighting from French designer Inès Bressand, who collaborates with basket weavers in Ghana. Only Members Get Access to Our Kitchen Design Insights Arrow Back then, the candy colored palette sprang to mind because she wanted “something soothing and in contrast to David’s provocative art,” Mahdavi tells AD PRO, noting how the rest of Sketch’s disparate spaces flaunted tones that were “saturated and eclectic.” What no one anticipated was that the Gallery’s profusion of pale pink would be such a smash, ultimately keeping the design scheme intact for far more years than the norm. You’ll probably be familiar with what Sketch’s restaurant, the Gallery, looks like, even if you’ve never set foot inside it. When Sketch’s owner Mourad Mazouz first summoned Mahdavi to the 18th-century townhouse, it was to bolster the artworks by David Shrigley that filled the Gallery. Giving artists carte blanche to leave their distinct, yet ephemeral, imprints on the Gallery for a few years at a time is one of Sketch’s most alluring aspects. Eight years later, that iconic interior, arguably Mahdavi’s most famous, has shockingly been dismantled and stripped of its signature hue, but its new incarnation promises to be just as thrilling a chapter. But in 2014, when AD Hall of Fame designer India Mahdavi swathed the all-day Gallery restaurant at Sketch in jovial pastel pink, the stampede of revelers keen to sit in that rose-washed room signaled the elevation of a classic, everyday ritual into something fashionable and downright sexy. Afternoon tea in London’s Mayfair is typically a sedate affair.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |