The Art of Living With Things | Laurence Dougier - Journalist & Interior Stylist
On the subtle science of mixing eras, the soul of a truly lived-in home, and why the right shade of khaki can take days to find.
There are people who understand interiors intellectually, and then there are people who feel them. Laurence Dougier belongs firmly in the second category. A journalist and interior stylist, her work has graced the pages of Elle Décoration France, Maisons Côte Sud, Marie-Claire Maison, and Visi in South Africa, among international publications across the globe. She has spent a career in service of a single pursuit: finding rooms that have something genuine to say.
Left: Laurence Dougier. Right: Evolution's Trees of SA Wall Panel featured in Elle Decoration France.
Her perspective, she'll tell you, is in a constant state of evolution. "It evolves every day depending on what I see, my travels, exhibitions, my reading." It is a way of staying open, of refusing to calcify into a fixed aesthetic position. What excites her most right now is the fine and difficult art of mixing eras. "Finding the right balance between past and present. Mixing, blending, associating different eras and styles. It is very subtle, and in reality few people truly succeed at it." She pauses on that word, subtle. "It is almost a science. Integrating ultra-modern elements into an 18th-century palace. Creating contrast in order to tell the story of the connection that unites different periods."
Her own tastes range across a wide and seemingly unlikely spectrum: the rough warmth of a wooden cabin, the pared-back minimalism of a Balearic finca, the faded grandeur of an Italian palazzo, the intimate strangeness of a desacralised church converted into a home. What connects them is not style, but character, a sense that the space has been inhabited and shaped by a life.
That instinct for character is precisely what she looks for in the brands and objects she champions. Evolution Products, whose textiles she has returned to over the years, appeals to this sensibility directly. Printed on linen, rooted in South African landscape and heritage, the pieces carry a narrative weight that reads naturally within spaces that have been assembled with intention rather than instruction.
Evolution's Fern Embroidered Cushion featured in Elle Decoration France.
On Timelessness
Ask Laurence about timelessness in design and she answers without hesitation. "I prefer homes that are in harmony with themselves, that can pass through the years without aging." Following trends, she says, is simply not in her DNA. "You quickly tire of things that are too fashionable." What endures is something quieter: spaces that hold their ground not because they are safe, but because they are coherent.
Colour is central to that coherence for her, but it is colour in its most nuanced form. "I have a real passion for nuances. I can spend days searching for the right khaki, the perfect green, the right ochre, the one that speaks to me." She describes colours that exist in half-tones, never too bright, always subtly layered. Since her twenties, she has painted every apartment and house she has lived in. During her three years in Cape Town, in a house in Rondebosch, each room carried its own distinct colour. "It highlights volumes," she says, "and creates singular atmospheres."
The question of when a space feels complete has a similarly human answer. It has nothing to do with perfection or finish; it has to do with presence. "It means that it is lived in. That the people who live there have chosen the decorative elements according to their desires, their influences, their rhythm of life, their moods, their needs." A home assembled in this way announces itself immediately. "You immediately sense when a home is truly lived in, when it is embodied. There is a soul that emerges instantly."
It is a generous definition of beauty, one that places human choice, human time, and human narrative at its centre. And it is why she keeps returning to work like Evolution's: pieces that do not demand attention, but reward it. Objects made with the understanding that a home is not a backdrop, but a record.
Evolution's Henge Throw, Green Leaf Embroidered Cushion on Charcoal, Fern 1 Embroidered Cushion, Variegated Stripe Green Embroidered Cushion featured in Elle Decoration France.
Quick Choices
A material that always photographs beautifully? Glassware. Chandeliers, vases, carafes, glasses, it is always sublime, especially in backlight.
Natural light or shadow? Natural light, always. I don't like artificial lighting, especially in photographs.
A favourite artist right now? Modigliani, Soulages, Eva Jospin, and the photographer Saul Leiter.
A place you dream of discovering? New Zealand. It is still wild and authentic.
Evolution's Stone Leaf Embroidered Throw featured in Elle Decoration France.
