Coming home to tradition

It is romanticism personified. Rich, vibrant colours and heavy, ornate furniture make this two-bedroom apartment a spectacular tribute to the vintage school of decor. For Selina Mirpuri, a well-travelled person, her home is simply a reflection of herself – contemporary yet rooted in tradition

Romanesque design and Italian frescoes are what fascinate Selina Mirpuri, I gather, as she walks me up to her apartment.

She looks to be the sort of person who prefers modern styles. Yet, once inside her home, you realise that much as she reveres the modern, she also has an undeniable love for the traditional.

Her home is rich with traditional touches mixed in with a bit of the eclectic. An Indian brought up in Indonesia with an education in Australia, Selina has dabbled in marketing, fashion and writing.

It explains her love for heavy fabrics like velvet and fur, heavy, wooden furniture and bright colours, which are however used in a way that makes them appear lighter, considerably toned down.

Toning down seems to be her speciality as she has, very clearly, managed to retain a sense of airiness, despite her love for the dark, heavy and ornate styles.

If she could, she would have loved to live in a Romanesque palace with high-vaulted ceilings painted with Michelangelo frescoes and gilded cornices and arches. However, she admits it would be rather impractical in modern times.

Furnishing her two-bedroom apartment was a challenge, as she wanted to replicate the atmosphere of her childhood home in Indonesia – a huge mansion with spacious rooms filled with heavy, traditional furnishing. Space has been respected even as she used it to speak in tones of tradition.

As a self-confessed shopaholic, it would have been all too easy to fall into the trap of cramming too much into a limited area. That she has desisted is as much a tribute to her restraint as her aesthetic skills.

Fabric and colours

Selina is inclined towards the natural palette and likes to introduce colour in the form of upholstery or soft furnishings. "I picked up a purple sofa and since I hate matching sofa sets, I got another sofa in olive green.

Purple is a very dark colour so I provided accent with a red velvet throw and for the green, the gold throw seemed a suitable choice."

The sofas and armchair are all in different types of chenille and the drapes are also chenille, although the drapes have been edged with fur to add texture. Chenille was preferred for its durability and for the richness that it lends to the 'traditional' theme.

Make-shift foyer