Designer
Rima Dardenne is founder of Irony Home, a leading hotel interior decorating firm for festive occasions, and the undisputed queen of festive decor in Dubai.
Trucks from her store Irony Home block the entrance and her decorating team scurry about unpacking baubles, cleaning crystal and carefully setting the stage for an illuminated work of festive art. Rima herself stands, cellphone to ear, giving instructions to her office (Christmas is the busiest time of the year for Irony Home), managing the design team around her, and welcoming me into her home. She is the queen of multi-tasking.
The Dardenne name, along with Irony Home, is synonymous with festive decor in Dubai. Top luxury hotels covet her services for their lobbies and main entertainment spaces. And an Irony Home decorated tree stops tourists and visitors in their tracks.
As it did the InsideOut team when we walked through the main doors to face a luminous, white Christmas tree, framed perfectly within the square of the living room entrance. This tree was the pièce de résistance of the festive home stage. A warm and ‘lived-in', yet chic living room space beautifully offsets the blue, translucent crystal and white tones of the tree. "I love that Tiffany blue against the white. It has a comfortable and elegant feel, and lights up any setting."
Like a modern Ali Baba's cave, stepping closer to the tree reveals a curious array of ornaments – crystal locomotives, three-dimensional crystal north stars, teardrop glass baubles and glittering ribbon – all jostling for space and intermittently accented by Rima's favourite colour, blue. The base of the tree is lined with gift boxes in chocolate and white stripes – an odd combination, but it works thanks to the decorator's creative genius.
"For this festive occasion (Christmas), I like an over-the-top atmosphere, a feeling of real abundance and richness that is, at the same time, elegant and chic, avoiding tacky. Add to that great lighting and great music, and even simple things like throwing ornaments in a bowl around the house, works and creates an instant party feel."
However, despite a very ‘Christmassy' atmosphere, Rima insists that she is not traditional in her design. "My work is what you would call more ‘transitional'. The former sounds old-fashioned while transitional, for me, has a timeless quality. Whether you walk into this decor today, or ten years from now, it would still feel just as unique."
The interiors of Rima's home are comfortable and luxurious in a non-ostentatious manner. "And happy and warm," she says proudly, which would be rather difficult to maintain during festive periods, considering the wow factor that most certainly hits the visitor stepping in. But somehow Rima has struck that balance.
The dining room offers a similar balance of cosy yet chic, with the table setting unquestionably the central focal point. "Although I hate the table itself and I can't wait to get rid of it!" says Rima. Warm golds, copper and creams twinkle on an equally soft beige and cream backdrop. The centrepiece is a minimal, stylised tree fashioned from mother-of-pearl petals and gold rim. Cut glass beads threaded in a row rain down from its branches, creating a canopy above the place settings. The effect is breathtaking.
"I like to be creative in a festive ambience, and that's what I did here. I like to make it welcoming and warm and interesting." And it is. The entire setting is a twinkling, opulent but warm ensemble.
Glass doors open onto the pool and garden area. The ambience is suddenly tropical and festive yet serene. Fairy lights cascading from tall palms create a veil through which a beautiful day bed gazebo can be seen. Again, mother-of-pearl lily pads cradling a tealight each, float in the water in some sort of midnight moonlit fantasy. White Moroccan-style lanterns of varying sizes sit around the bed on the terracotta tiles.
Being a designer's home, good mood lighting is the norm. In the garden, it creates drama, accenting the occasional sculpture or Buddha head amidst luscious greenery, and soft music wafts over the deck. It is suddenly very easy to picture this space milling with people and filled with laughter. Rima's face fills with pride as she lights the occasional candle, relaxes on the daybed and takes it all in. This also happens to be Rima's favourite place for respite. She talks about her Christmas day plans.
"I like to celebrate Christmas with family and friends, as well as people who don't have family here. Festive occasions can be hard for newcomers in town, particularly in expat-centric places. Although in Dubai, it is still not difficult to mingle and make friends. But we have always invited people who did not have family in the country, as well as those who, in general, were not blessed with one."
