Style Inspiration from the Masters

Artists, that is--from Matisse to Giacometti--I'm taking my cues from the studio

Last week I ended up in the Cote d’Azur—we were meant to be in India, but I got foiled by a visa rejection—not once, but twice! Take it from me—if you put journalist on a visa application, they reject you immediately. As Yolanda is working on a book on France, and a summer issue devoted to Spain, we quickly pivoted, and headed to the South of France. In Nice we were hosted by my friend Gaudéric, who is the general manager of the Anantara Plaza Nice, who not only took great care of us at the hotel, he also took us around to some of his favorite places. The weather was absolutely terrible—they say that it rains so rarely in Nice—but it was torrential. So that meant we were going to be exploring rather than sitting back drinking rosé in the sun. Yolanda had this idea to see if we could have lunch or dinner at La Colombe d’Or, or maybe even a room, and shockingly, they did. La Colombe d’Or is one of our favorite places—it’s in Saint-Paul de Vence, about a half an hour from Nice—and we’ve been a couple of times, but it is usually impossible to get into. It’s a hotel that’s been around since the 1920s and has the best collection of art—some of my favorite modernists like Léger, Calder, Braque, and of course, Picasso—because they would host these artists in trade for their work. Just up the road is one of my favorite musuems, Fondation Maeght—a building designed by Josep Lluis Sert—that houses Miró, Calder, Giacometti—to name a few. Since we were early to check in, we headed 10 minutes up the road to the Matisse Chapel. It’s amazing how many artists of that period decamped to the Cote d’Azur, from 19th century Impressionists to Modernists, escaping the realities of war-torn Europe for the sea, light, and weather of the Mediterranean. Between the Matisse’s Rosary Chapel, a stop at the Léger Museum in Biot (just 20 minutes from Saint-Paul de Vence), the Fondation Maeght, and the Colombe d’Or, it was the first time I was really paying attention to all these artists and their studio style—Giacometti in turtlenecks and heavy tweed, Léger in cardigan and necktie, and of course Picasso in his ever present striped shirt, and properly in-seamed shorts. I dug Matisse’s husky man style—very elegant in waist coat and