Fifty years ago, a 28-year-old Frenchman named Manuel Canovas started a fabric company in Paris. For his designs, he would take things he found during his travels and rework them in a distinctly French way, giving them a modern yet elegant feel.
One of Canovas's favorite destinations was India. It is a favorite of Canovas's current design director, Ariane Dalle, too, ever since her first trip in 1998. "Everything is inspiring there: the people, the streets, the gardens," she says in the company's cheerful studio in the heart of Paris, which she has run since 2009. "They have maintained the savoir faire of 18th-century embroidery, and they have an extraordinary, intuitive sense of color. There is an authenticity in India that we have lost in our own modern countries."
Dalle decided to…
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ELLE DECOR (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2013