Photography Hugh Stewart
Iona is bustling with people. Caterers’ trucks are parked around the pebbled driveway of designer Catherine Martin and film director Baz Luhrmann’s heritage-listed Sydney home. There is a marquee set up in front of the stained-glass front door to shield tonight’s party guests from likely rain; inside, hundreds of empty tea-light holders line the walls, much to the annoyance of those scurrying in and out.
Tonight the house will be packed with Sydney’s social set, sipping champagne and toasting the launch of Martin’s new range of hand-knotted rugs from Designer Rugs, but, for now, only party organisers and Vogue have the run of the house.
Wandering through the rooms is like stepping through the highlights of Martin and Luhrmann’s careers. Props, keepsakes, even furniture from their films Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, Australia and the forthcoming The Great Gatsby are scattered throughout.
The elegantly masculine study’s walls are lined with bookshelves packed with well-thumbed volumes on history and art and geography and films and fairytales, while the dark walls in a formal sitting room are hung with large evocative close-ups of familiar indigenous faces.
The mantelpiece in the room dubbed the Moulin Rouge room, for its Byzantine red wallpaper and gilt details, is heavy with trophies, including two Academy Awards, four Baftas, a clutch of AFIs and all manner of other spiky gold, silver and glass prizes stacked high. Framed posters, photos, newspaper front pages trumpeting the success of La Bohème in New York, a Billboard chart mapping the record sales of the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack and a Karl Lagerfeld sketch inscribed “pour Nicole” hang around the room.
The house also serves as headquarters for their production company Bazmark Inq; so, sitting just outside the kitchen, a pair of silent, headphone wearing film editors go about their business, staring at repeating slow-motion clips of Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio on a computer, under the gaze of a large stone ornamental Ganesh.
Earlier I wondered why the award-winning set designer with an unquestionably busy schedule, plus two young children, would also create a homewares line. It turns out her home is the ultimate showcase of her work and the worlds that she creates on screen. Home life and work life seem to flow infinitely back and forth.So it makes complete sense that the inescapably influential art deco aesthetic of her latest film project Gatsby would influence her latest collaboration with Designer Rugs.
Petite, vivacious Martin, all big blue eyes and wide white smile, settles into a quiet corner to talk about the project. She has a very personal connection to art deco, the design style that was born in Paris before sweeping the world’s style capitals in the 1920s and 30s.
With a French mother, Martin spent a large part of her childhood at her grandparents’ home in Nevers in central France. Built by an Argentinean millionaire in the 20s in what Martin describes as a “modernist art deco” style, the house had a marble staircase wrapped around an art deco lift, leather double doors, a mottled mirrored bathroom and numerous guest rooms. “I was obsessed with that house as a kid,” says Martin, vividly recalling the details. For her, it’s the double personality of deco style that appeals. “I love the fact that they were taking these very clean, very classical modern lines and taking things that were the antithesis of that, like a gothic style or a much more rococo or Victorian style and [bringing them together].”
Designing the five hand-knotted Tibetan wool and silk rugs was also an ideal opportunity for Martin to revisit some of her favourite motifs. “I am always trying to find a way to include birds,” she says with a laugh. “I love birds, flowers and chinoiserie.”
Other inspirations included Indonesian and Balinese furniture, ornate Parisian ironwork and the distinctive curlicues of Hermès’s red and white Balcon du Guadalquivir crockery set. “I like all that mixture.”
The rugs were completed before filming on Gatsby began, so when large-scale rugs were needed for the Gatsby and Buchanan interiors sets, Martin suggested Luhrmann include them. The director happily agreed. She says one of the joys of working with her husband is his strong visual perspective. “He’s always asking for visual stimulus. ‘What would that look like? How big would that person’s house be? What kind of furniture would they have?’ Because he’s always thinking about how to use visuals to help to tell the story.” She likens him to an orchestra leader, using all the instruments to put the story together.
Satisfaction for her comes from being part of the storytelling process. “You’re making a piece of work that transcends what your contribution is,” she says. “I like that usually on Baz’s movies I end up not even noticing what I did,” she adds with a smile.
She constantly refers back to Luhrmann. “It is a collaboration and he sets the tone,” she says. “It’s not to say that it’s not a big conversation, but he definitely sets the pathway that we are going down.”
Working on Gatsby offered Martin the opportunity for other intriguing collaborations, namely with Tiffany & Co., Brooks Brothers and Prada. “The collaborations either came from existing relationships or because there was a link to the book or [author F Scott] Fitzgerald in some profound way,” Martin explains.
The author was a loyal Tiffany & Co. client, for example, and he included significant references to the jeweller in Gatsby. There was a similar link with the quintessential American outfitter Brooks Brothers. “Fitzgerald was obsessed with class and with having been to an Ivy League university. He was also a lifelong customer of Brooks Brothers because he saw them as the purveyor of the preppie style, the secret language that allowed other Ivy League university [alumni] to know that you were that class of people.” Martin designed the men’s costumes in the film with this in mind, and Brooks Brothers produced them.
“It is a collaboration
and he sets the tone,”
It’s not to say that it’s not a big conversation,
but he definitely sets the pathway
that we are going down.”
Despite the fact she’s a long-time collaborator and friend of the couple, Miuccia Prada seems a curious match with Gatsby. Martin pursued it, however, drawing parallels between the way Luhrmann and Ms Prada work. “I said to Baz, you’re looking at the past through modern glasses and she looks to the future through historical glasses.” Martin went through the Prada archives, searching for dresses inspired by the 1920s and selecting 20 to be re-edited for the two key party scenes. “We call them the Prada girls who form the pinnacle of the dressing in those background shots – and then I had to lift myself to that standard for the [costumes for] the other 15 people in that scene,” she says with a wry smile.
Martin describes her work as a vocation, more than a job. “It’s not to say that some days I don’t feel pressured or I don’t think that I can’t come up with an idea, because we all suffer from that stress.”
She splits her time between Sydney and the couple’s home in New York, but in between film productions, she likes to travel to Paris with her family to relax. Switching off means grocery shopping, preparing meals and cleaning. “What I like engaging in is the banal rituals of home life,” she says drily.
Yet she’s always looking and absorbing the world around her. “I can’t help it – I love looking at people, I love looking at things.” And there’s usually some or other project “purring” in the background. “I’m always filing things away in my brain because one of my greatest pleasures is to look at stuff.”
Published in Vogue Australia September 2012
WHY DON’T YOU READ:
The ABC’s Phyrne Fisher was a labour of love
Charlotte Rampling talks about her new Australian film
