Some designers create beautiful interiors. India Mahdavi creates worlds. Based in Paris, the architect, designer, and scenographer has developed a visual language that is instantly recognisable, moving effortlessly between architecture, interiors, furniture, objects, and scenography. Her studio, established around the turn of the millennium, has worked across an extraordinary range of international projects, from restaurants and hotels to private residences and cultural spaces, always with a strong sense of personality and place.

Colour as a Point of Departure

Colour is perhaps the most recognisable element of Mahdavi’s work, but reducing her interiors to colourful spaces would miss what makes them so compelling. Pinks, reds, greens, yellows and blues are combined with texture, pattern, light and carefully considered proportions to create environments that feel almost physical in their intensity. For Mahdavi, colour has its own language, capable of expressing happiness, memory, curiosity and even a certain sense of freedom.

Between Cultures

Her approach is deeply cosmopolitan. Born in Tehran to an Iranian father and an Egyptian mother, raised across different countries and eventually based in Paris, Mahdavi draws naturally from a wide cultural vocabulary. Iranian influences, European modernism, Mediterranean sensibilities, cinema, art and popular culture can all find their way into her work without becoming literal references. The result is a style that feels worldly but never anonymous, with different influences transformed into something distinctly personal.

Interiors as Theatre

There is a cinematic quality to many of Mahdavi’s spaces. Her interiors are composed almost like scenes, with colour, furniture, lighting and architecture carefully positioned to create an emotional response. The Gallery at Sketch in London remains one of her most recognisable projects, while restaurants such as Ladurée and Cavallino demonstrate how she can give hospitality spaces a strong identity without sacrificing comfort. Her portfolio continues to move between these different scales, from intimate rooms to ambitious cultural projects.

The Joy of Living

Despite the visual richness of her work, comfort remains an important part of Mahdavi’s philosophy. She has spoken about the relationship between physical and visual comfort, and about creating spaces that encourage people to relax, talk and connect. That balance gives her interiors their particular warmth. A room can be extravagant, playful or intensely colourful, yet still feel inviting enough to inhabit. Beauty is never treated as something separate from everyday life.

A World Beyond Interiors

Mahdavi’s creative universe extends far beyond the spaces she designs. Alongside architecture and interior projects, she creates furniture, lighting and small objects, collaborates with artisans and develops exhibitions and installations through her Paris Project Room. Her practice has become something closer to a complete design ecosystem, where objects, spaces, art and craftsmanship constantly inform one another. What emerges is more than a signature aesthetic. It is a particular way of looking at the world, one filled with colour, curiosity, humour and an unmistakable sense of joie de vivre.

//

What do you think? Did you like this article? Follow Covet House on Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok, we are here to give you the best interior design inspiration for your design projects and, never forget, celebrate design with friends as we do!