Dimore Studio, decoded: the six details I keep seeing in its rooms

Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran founded the studio in Milan in 2003, and they design the way a director dresses a set. A Mayfair supper club takes its cue from Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love. A train becomes a run of richly coloured carriages, each its own scene. A listed Belgravia flat keeps every cornice and moulding, then is coloured, lit and layered until it glows.

Yes, it's theatrical. But these are rooms made to be lived in: to sink into, to linger in, to lap up. The drama is never there just for show.

I picked out seven of its most recognisable projects: homes in London, Milan and Saint-Tropez, a Mayfair supper club, a Brera trattoria, a grand hotel bistrot and a train. The secret isn't dark walls and purple velvet. It's how the whole room is made to glow.

This is my decode of the studio's work from the outside looking in. You may well see its rooms differently.

The designers

Dimore Studio

Emiliano Salci and Britt Moran

Interiors, furniture and lighting, Milan

dimorestudio.eu

The book

Dimore Studio (Rizzoli, 2018)

01

Dark, but never flat

Walnut, tobacco, chocolate and umber make the backdrop. Then the materials go to work: brass catches the light, lacquer throws it back, velvet soaks it up. That's the difference between a dark room and a rich one.

Not every project goes dark. Eaton Square sits on sage and stone, Caruso Nuovo is rich rather than dark, and the Saint-Tropez flat is full of sun. The brass and the lacquer are there all the same.

At home

Paint one wall and its woodwork in a deep, warm shade, then add brass and something lacquered to catch the light.

This is one of the two details I'd use in my own house. It's a smarter way to colour drench: the brass and lacquer bounce the light around, so the colour has depth and the room never goes flat.

02

The jewel is punctuation

On top of that dark base go the jewel colours: aubergine, plum, burgundy, oxblood. They're what you remember, yet they're surprisingly demure: in the photographs I measured, they never cover more than a twentieth of the picture. They sit on a velvet chair, a carpet, a lacquered sideboard, always from the same family as the dark behind them, only richer. In Salci's own flat the plum does go on the walls, but lacquered so deep it reads almost as brown.

A burgundy chair on its own is just a burgundy chair. Put it in the right room and it becomes the whole point.

At home

Start with a velvet cushion or lampshade in one jewel colour. Earn the chair later.

This is the other detail I'd use at home. Just enough jewel colour to anchor the room, never so much that it overwhelms.

03

Look up

The ceiling is part of the design, not the bit left white at the end. Saffron overhead at Caruso Nuovo, glossy terracotta coffers at Trattoria del Ciumbia, a different colour in every carriage of the Orient Express.

A white ceiling is where a dark room leaks its mood. Colour it, and the room closes around you like a theatre once the house lights go down. Add a soft sheen and the lamplight plays across it, bringing deep colours to life.

Even the exception proves the point. In the sunlit Saint-Tropez flat, in a 1930s building designed like an ocean liner, the ceilings stay pale, but they're still designed: a stepped oval over the sofa, a brass dish set into the kitchen ceiling. Dimore reads the place first, and on the Riviera the light does the colouring.

At home

Take the wall colour across the ceiling in a soft sheen, or at least pick out the cornice in a deeper shade.

04

Two of everything

Twin sconces, matching vases, a pair of armchairs facing across a table. Symmetry is Dimore's quiet organising principle: when the colour is rich and the materials compete for attention, a matching pair steadies the room. Kelly Wearstler often plays with near-matches. Dimore tends to commit.

When two aren't enough, it skips three and goes straight to a crowd: five silk lanterns in a row at Leo's, a line of 1970s lamps down Salci's own corridor, a ceiling full of Murano chandeliers at Eaton Square. Forget the rule of three.

At home

Two matching lamps on a sideboard. Save the row of pendants for a long table.

05

Diamonds are a designer's best friend

Curves run through almost every project: round tables, globe lights, oval ceilings, banquettes that bend. Then comes the counterpoint: a diamond. A harlequin bar front at Leo's, a trellis over palm wallpaper at Caruso Nuovo, a frieze of steel triangles locking into diamonds at Ciumbia, a lattice-fronted brass cabinet at Eaton Square, a harlequin wall closing the lounge car on the Orient Express.

At home it gets softer but never disappears: diamond cushions on the curved sofa in Saint-Tropez, a lattice rug in Salci's own flat. It's the grit in all that softness. Without it, the curves would turn sweet.

At home

A harlequin rug or a diamond cushion beside something round. Trellis wallpaper behind a round table only if you're feeling brave.

06

Different rooms, one story

Each room, or each carriage, has its own colour, yet the same brass, the same dark timber and the same lamps run through all of them, so the mood builds as you move through. Nothing matches from one room to the next, but everything belongs.

At home

Give each room its own colour, and repeat one thing between them, a brass finish or the same lamp.