At home with
Constance Gennari, Laurent Geneslay, Achille 14, Brune 12, Léonard 4 and Uno 1 year old
In Paris – the eclectic family home of the founder and Creative Director of The Socialite Family
The initial idea was a form of light-hearted sociological observation. Through her online magazine, Constance Gennari aimed to introduce a new generation of parents through their homes. Ten years later, its success is still a fact.
In the meantime, observation has transitioned into action. The phrasing might seem unexpected, but it encapsulates the philosophy behind The Socialite Family, the interior design brand launched in 2017: to “create family.” Functional furniture that never compromises on aesthetics. New classics that can be passed down through generations and various homes.
Regardless of perspective, family is at the very core of everything told and explored here. What could be more natural than to step into the private world of someone who has for so long examined the stories and tastes of others?
Constance Gennari is Parisian, Milanese, a mother, wife, entrepreneur, and tireless. With an ability to generate ideas as rapidly as minutes pass, the energetic founder and Creative Director of The Socialite Family is hard to keep up with. Her curiosity constantly seeks the next aesthetic surprise, even when it’s hidden in something as specific as the dimmer switch on a 1980s lamp.
Between her career, an active social life, her family – three children and a husband who is also an entrepreneur – and, to make the equation even more complex, the young golden retriever Uno, she recently decided to use some of the time she doesn't really have to change everything in her home.
A coincidence? Ten years have passed. The first ten years of The Socialite Family's existence. Ten years of life and development in this family apartment at the top of a 1930s industrial building.
One cycle is ending... but don't they say that everything starts over again?
WRITER:
Elsa Cau
PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO:
Clothilde Redon, Elsa David
Published by The Socialite Family
Translated by Brandstationen
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Read the original article →
As the natural centerpiece of the living room, Rotondo adds a playful and elegant touch for the whole family.
TSF – What is your background?
Constance | I grew up between Paris and Milan. After Lübeck and Janson de Sailly, I first studied art history and then law at the Sorbonne, hoping to pass the auctioneer's exam. But by chance, I started working for Milk Magazine, which had just launched, before moving on to the agency Ouvriers du Paradis, which experienced its golden age in the 1990s and truly laid the foundation for the Rive Gauche spirit that later defined Le Bon Marché. After that, I became an art buyer in the advertising industry. My job was to find the right photographer for the right project and propose a stylistic signature to the client. But I found it difficult to fit into the way advertising agencies operated. Personally, I like the unexpected...
TSF – Tell us how The Socialite Family came about.
Constance | I sent out my first newsletter for The Socialite Family – I usually just say Socialite to save time – on a Friday the 13th in 2013, at a time in my life when I was ready to start my own business. Back then, blogs were very popular. They were an easy way to showcase one's taste, and they also had the advantage of highlighting many hidden talents to the world. I used this format to show off my friends' homes and what I saw as a new generation of family life. I used the time I received unemployment benefits to build the website.
TSF – What identity did you want to give the online magazine?
Constance | I wanted to focus on today's families: those who have children later in life – and who generally also have more money. I started with my friends, who lived a very urban life. Parents who work, who travel with their children, and who often live closer to their children than previous generations did. These are people who have developed their taste over time and who have very strong personalities, which is reflected in their homes.
Unfortunately, interior design is always a compromise. You can't choose everything in your home by yourself (laughs). The idea is not to wrap the apartment or house in cotton just because the children are small or lively. On the contrary, we need to teach them! In our home, we always grew up surrounded by beautiful things. And besides, objects and furniture live on, so it doesn't matter. That was also what The Socialite Family was about in the beginning: showing real life, with a bit of disorder and a mix of everyday objects and more valuable things – not perfect interiors, although there is an ambition, of course.
TSF – So the first years of The Socialite Family as an online magazine were also about improvising and solving things as you went along?
Constance | In the beginning, I had a friend who translated the website for me. I asked a young designer, Jeff Paff, to create a layout. I went to a local developer who looked at me with a skeptical glance, as if he thought this would never work! I was pregnant with Brune, and we worked from his basement.
I needed to see everything and monitor every detail. I always had my idea very clear in my mind. I used to send out newsletters every three weeks, and each mailing contained several family reports photographed by photographers who, initially, agreed to work more or less on a barter basis. Often they were fashion photographers, and I offered to invest a little in their interior design projects because I was interested in their way of looking at the subject.
TSF's Chiesa stools surround the poker table designed by Joe Colombo, which has been converted into a desk for The Socialite Family's art director.
A play of textures and patterns with TSF's modular sofa Rotondo
TSF – When did you decide to launch the interior design brand?
Constance | Initially, I didn't have a business model (laughs). Especially since I refused to "sell the family silver," as someone suggested I should do. This independence in taste and perspective was important to me.
I met my partner Marianne Gosset through a mutual friend two years after I started the blog. She had just returned from New York, where she worked in mergers and acquisitions at Barclays. She had already accepted a job here in Paris. But we spent a morning together and... she decided to take the plunge with me.
One day, La Redoute suggested we collaborate. It became The Socialite Family's bedroom collection for La Redoute, and it was a great success. I worked together with their designers in their factories in northern France.
Marianne asked me if I had more ideas, and of course, I did. We had caught a glimpse of another, more hybrid business model... So we decided to go for it.
In 2017, we presented our first collection of furniture and interior design objects at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. Today, we have three in-house designers and work with artisans we have carefully selected across Europe.
TSF – In ten years, The Socialite Family has come a long way, both as a brand and as an online magazine.
Constance | Yes, but for me, the driving force is the same, and I still feel the same way. I still want to be involved in photographing families, be inspired by people's stories and their homes, and of course, I still have tons of ideas for new collections.
It's true that we have grown significantly. But I still feel that we are only at the beginning of our story.
Our core principles have been the same from the start. For the brand, it's about the art of materials – with a careful selection of European artisans – the art of colors, which is fundamental to me, as well as the art of composing and creating contrasts.
I would also add a clear French-Italian identity, which comes from my own background, although I don't limit myself to it. Nothing prevents me from being inspired by everything around me.
Today, we produce four collections a year.
TSF – What inspires you in everyday life?
Constance | My sources of inspiration are very varied, but they often start with encounters: with fascinating and creative people, with a film or a book. It's not on social media that you learn things, in my opinion. It can be an exhibition or a find at a flea market.
Then there's Italy, where I spent part of my childhood, and the history of Italian design that we experienced every day in Milan.
But it can also be a trip, or seeing my children and their way of perceiving the world, how they dress, and what discoveries they make.
What has always been constant for me is curiosity and eclecticism.
But what I lack nowadays is time – time to be inspired.
The Aldo sofa in white corduroy creates a calm contrast to the wide-striped curtains and decorative cushions.
In a room where textiles dominate, The Socialite Family's Carlotta coffee table in pink marble contributes a calm and grounding element of stone.
The Mara shelves from TSF are the perfect place for the music lover.
On the table: TSF's Monastico placemats and their embroidered Domenica tablecloth.
TSF – You grew up in a very special family environment: a very Parisian mother and an Italian father...
Constance | My mother is truly a character. She was quite strict in how she raised us four children, but at the same time a bit eccentric, very witty, and above all, incredibly elegant, with a fantastic cultural education. She took me everywhere. We grew up with two Italian greyhounds, surrounded by all her finds. She loved to hunt for antiques and still does – she goes to the Drouot auction house almost every day and frequently visits the Saint-Ouen flea market.
She is very curious and has always been incredibly inventive, even though she enjoys spending money. Our home was like a dollhouse, filled with textiles, artworks, and beautiful objects, spread over two floors in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. My mother only drank from crystal glasses and always set the table with silver cutlery. All while listening to The Doors.
TSF – Getting to know you, one recognizes your heritage and your sense of detail and classicism, but there’s also a significantly more relaxed side.
Constance | Perhaps that comes from the Italian side. My father was the complete opposite: a minimalist home where not much money was spent on decor – it didn't interest him. However, it was my Italian friends who opened the doors to some amazing family homes for me.
TSF – How would you describe your taste?
Constance | It’s constantly evolving. Through my upbringing, I inherited a love for the 18th century – hence my love for tapestries – and more generally for a classic, bourgeois style. But also a passion for colors, as well as a more radical and modern side that likely comes from my Italian roots.
I love cultural clashes, the mixture of eras and styles. It's like with clothes: I almost exclusively love vintage pieces and combine flea market finds, which I'm completely obsessed with, with some beautiful vintage pieces from major fashion houses or sometimes a pair of modern shoes or an accessory. Recently, I traveled to the US and became obsessed with both old and modern cowboy boots, for example.
TSF – This year, you’ve changed everything in the family apartment. What were you tired of seeing?
Constance | The gray, polished concrete floor! I've only kept it in the kitchen. I wanted to lay white tiles, but in the end, I thought it would feel too clinical.
TSF – Since you live in a historic building, one must be sensitive to the interplay between the architecture and the interior.
Constance | This is an industrial building from the 1930s, a former textile factory. Laurent Buttazzoni had already designed the apartment's interior for the previous owners. We haven't changed the layout at all. We just took over a room when Leonardo was born. The rest is about interior design.
TSF – What changes have you made to the home?
Constance | I really wanted to create something much softer. Carpets everywhere and a distinct 70s and 80s feel where you want to sit down directly on the floor. I wanted to create several different corners and moods in the rooms, especially in the living room which is very large.
There are more colors than before, but I also wanted to simplify: fewer pieces of furniture, only beautiful things and nothing unnecessarily on display. I love that I no longer have anything on my coffee tables. It feels so liberating. When the gaze rests, it’s on a beautiful lamp or a nice painting, period.
I've extended the bookshelves to accommodate the books and magazines we've collected over a long time. We save them, and I draw a lot of inspiration from them in my work.
I'm very fond of our modular sofa Rotondo. The leopard print fabric works particularly well against the ochre carpet. And with the kids and the dog, it's also practical. You can move the modules around and put them back, and the fabric hides dirt quite well.
In the hallway, I laid a Versailles parquet floor that I found at my mother's. Several years ago, she passed a city palace that was being renovated. When she saw the parquet being torn out, she exclaimed that it was a crime and saved it for her country house in Perche. This year, we installed it at our home, square by square, and supplemented with new pieces where needed. Then we sanded, waxed, and varnished the entire floor.We also transformed the enclosed, windowless room next to the living room into a TV room, game room, and library.
During our much-appreciated exhibition La Scopa last winter, we took over a palace in the heart of Paris that was scheduled for demolition. There, we displayed The Socialite Family's collections. I took the fabrics that we had hung on the walls during the exhibition and created a draped, enveloping feel in the room at home.
After the exhibition, I also bought some paintings by the artist Renske Linders, whom I discovered through The Curators, including the painting of a pair of buttocks that hangs in my office! In the evenings, I turn on our small Tubo lamp which illuminates it wonderfully.
TSF – You live here with your family. So it's not just you who decides on the interior design...
Constance | That's right. Laurent and I don't always have the same taste, and we have to compromise, just like everyone else. But the nice thing is that he likes my suggestions more and more (laughs). For example, there's a vintage American Herman Miller desk here in the living room that's his, as is the fantastic Hans Wegner armchair – the one with the rope details.
TSF – Can you name one of your favourite spots in the apartment?
Constance | My own little workspace, in an alcove in the living room, surrounded by large windows with a view of the rooftops and our small balcony.
The most important piece of furniture here is, of course, my desk, which is actually a poker table designed by Joe Colombo. Around it are my papers, my books, and my favourite objects, several of which are family heirlooms, like the small Gallé lamp that belonged to my great-aunt.
In each of the table's four corners, there's a foldable ashtray for smokers. I've always had a passion for ashtrays and collect them, especially Italian ones. All this to avoid smoking...
I often work from here, and Léonard, my youngest son, sits opposite me with his colouring book. I've complemented the workspace with a plexiglass stool that I bought in Italy. Right now, I love plexiglass.
TSF – What should we look out for from The Socialite Family in the coming months?
Constance | Right now, we're working intensively on the launch of our latest collection, L’Arte della Gioia. It's vibrant, colourful, and a tribute to the home – the safe place that welcomes us after an intense start to autumn, where we find ourselves again, prepare for autumn, and immerse ourselves in a good book. Or perhaps even live as if in a novel.
I wanted to give a nod to the literary autumn season, so we created an elegant and timeless interior filled with books that carry stories, warm colours, and contrasting textiles and materials. Some patterns are inspired by the 17th century, while others draw influences from the 1980s, a period that fascinates me greatly right now.
In the longer term, I hope that The Socialite Family will be able to reach more continents. Last year, we opened our first office in New York. To be continued...
