Romain Baty on MG + BW’s Lincoln Onyx Pull-Up Table. © Michael Ventura
Romain Baty on MG + BW’s Lincoln Onyx Pull-Up Table. © Michael Ventura
A Paris salon showcases a chaise by Mies van der Rohe. © Jean François Gschwindt
A Paris dining room combines a 19th-century Chinese cabinet with plaster sunburst masks from the 1940s. © Thomas Paquet
A bathroom boasts surfaces clad in concrete with epoxy resin. © Jean François Gschwindt
A Mackintosh-inspired stencil adorned Baty’s Boudoir in the 2017 DC Design House. © Angie Seckinger
A Paris living room reflects the style of Italian architect Gio Ponti. © Thomas Paquet
French-born Romain Baty arrived in the U.S. in 2016, leaving behind a burgeoning interior-design career inspired by years of art direction in elite Paris fashion houses such as Yves Saint Laurent and Dior. “I always wanted to live abroad,” he says. “When my husband was offered a job in Washington with the IMF, I said, ‘Yes!’”
The move turned out to be an opportunity for Baty, who now works on both sides of the Atlantic—currently completing a project on Capitol Hill while embarking on another in Paris. The designer espouses an eclectic sensibility. “I bring together different styles, shapes, and forms for contrast,” he explains. “This is what is interesting to me. I want to draw out my clients’ tastes but also expose them to something new.
“People have different values and cultures,” he continues. “Home is about intimacy and that means different things to different people. How you furnish your house is what you say to others about yourself.”
Interior Design: Romain Baty; Romain Baty, Washington, DC.