The Collectors: Patrick Gilles and Dorothée Boissier
The visionary talents have cultivated an astounding design for their historic home in Paris by incorportating sculptures by Christian Astuguevieille and Christophe Carbonnel
The visionary talents behind storied landmarks for Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons and Six Senses, Patrick Gilles and Dorothée Boissier are masters at recognizing beauty.
The husband-and-wife founders of Paris studio Gilles & Boissier—whose projects include Moncler shops and Hakkasan restaurants around the world, private yachts, and resplendent residences—have cultivated an equally astounding design for their own historic home, where they display sculptures by Christian Astuguevieille and Christophe Charbonnel alongside photographs by Albert Watson.
On view: “We love sculpture because depending on the height you put it, you discover it and see it very different,” says Boissier. “In antique architecture, art pieces are always positioned in an important place, such as in between columns at the end of the corridor, so this is the way we like to put art.”
Found objects: “One of the first pieces of sculpture we collected was from a French artist, Christophe Charbonnel,” says Boissier, who grew up in an art-collecting family, while Gilles’s tastes were honed shopping at the Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves in Paris. “The artist usually never sells the plaster, but Patrick insisted so much that he gave in. We still buy from him, sometimes in plaster and other pieces in bronze.”
Palette choice: The pair predominantly gravitates toward works in black and white, a choice that echoes the neutral palette of their home and the projects they conceive. “To live with so much color would be complicated for us,” she says.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2024 Late Fall Issue under the headline “The Collectors.” Subscribe to the magazine.