Every spring Evelyne Julienne chooses a flower that will be the inspiration for the following year’s Yves Delorme Collection. At her local flower market, in Versailles, she looks for the best species, the unusual colour, the pleasing shape, then back in the Yves Delorme studio she starts painting delicate watercolours from which the whole collection will evolve.

Evelyne’s love of flowers was nurtured during the four years she spent in England. After graduating from the Ecole des Beaux-arts of Angers Evelyne took a two-year post-graduate diploma at the Kingston Art School before working as a freelance designer, based in Chelsea. “I was very privileged,” says Evelyne. “I lived at Hampton Court, Kew and Richmond, near the most wonderful parks and gardens.” Evelyne loved the English way of life, where flowers play an important part and window boxes burst out with daffodils at the first blush of spring.

Daffodils are the stars of the 2003 Yves Delorme collection where they blossom on crisp cotton percale, seersucker and deep towelling. Within the same colour palette Evelyne likes to create different rhythms using scattered blooms, full flowers with long stems, and a stripe counterpoint, as well as a variety of textures.

Evelyne and the Yves Delorme design team create thirty to forty new designs every year, worked out in various colour palettes and with an international appeal. Within the many floral motifs variations are introduced to suit different tastes and cultures. Exotic flowers with long woody stems appeal to the Japanese, yellow garden flowers brighten Anglo-Saxon interiors, the Americans like beige and white and there is always an up-to-the-minute fashion flower for pizzazz, like Monalisa.

In the ’80s Evelyne was creating fashion accessories for Cacharel at the same time as she was designing home linen for Yves Delorme. This double experience means that her home designs always catch the elusive mood of today. Then in 1989, she became the exclusive designer for Yves Delorme “developing shops and all the products, so that they inspire each other and create a common language.”

Today the Yves Delorme collection includes more and more products, from scents to table linen to lamps, boxes and table accessories. Evelyne works closely with all the product creators building up a strong design team within the company. “I see Yves Delorme as a brand for a whole lifestyle that is coherent and always has something new to add.”

“We must always keep an element of surprise,” adds Evelyne with a twinkle in her eye.

Further information, pictures and products from
Carla Reid-Adam, on 020 8539 6258 (pr@reid-adam.com).