Find our full conversation with Luca Pronzato of We Are Ona and India Mahdavi below.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"india](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/india-mahdavi-we-are-ona-rose-draped-speakeasy-art-basel-paris-luca-pronzato-designboom-01.jpg\")
\u2018Rose, c\u2019est la vie\u2019 is an unexpected sanctuary of softness amid the intensity<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
in conversation with India Mahdavi and Luca Pronzato<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
designboom (DB): How did the idea for this collaboration come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Luca Pronzato (LP):<\/strong> At We Are Ona, we create culinary experiences where we like to invite not only guest chefs but also creatives, designers, artists, and architects to think in their own way about the culinary experience. I\u2019ve always dreamed of working with India Mahdavi. We\u2019ve been talking about it for a very long time, and I\u2019m so happy to celebrate India\u2019s work and to let the We Are Ona guests experience her pop-up.<\/p>\n![\"india](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/india-mahdavi-we-are-ona-rose-draped-speakeasy-art-basel-paris-luca-pronzato-designboom-04.jpg\")
the week-long pop-up is set inside a former car repair shop<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
DB: Was the location something that We Are Ona decided first and then invited India, or did you discuss it together?<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
LP:<\/strong> What I love about the creative process is the conversation that we have had along the way with India. It\u2019s pretty much carte blanche at We Are Ona. I remember India talking to me about this idea of creating a super feminine speakeasy, where you can push a door in Paris and arrive in her world.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
India Mahdavi (IM):<\/strong> One of the first things I noticed was that We Are Ona has mainly worked with men and fewer women. I thought I had to really make sort of a rupture, a continuity within the quality, of course, but sort of a rupture with the aesthetics that were being sort of brutalist, minimalist, etc. I wanted it to be a very immersive experience. The experience has to start from the street. Where are you going? How do you enter? There should be a bit of a surprise.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I started working with the idea of a floral fabric, which was inspired by the rose of Isfahan, Iran. It\u2019s a small, beautiful rose that has the most incredible perfume. I just took it to a different scale, and it turned into this kind of shimmery, feminine world. I felt like within this environment of the art fair, it would be nice to have this feeling of being embraced by your grandmother, in a way. So, the project was crafted by me responding not only to We Are Ona, but also to the event in Paris, and to my own aesthetics. What\u2019s interesting about this experience is that you\u2019re free to work with your imagination.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, when I showed my idea to Luca, he loved it. Still, we had to find a place where we could have this element of surprise. Luca and his team proposed five to ten spaces. We investigated what sequences we could create around each of them, and then chose the one that worked best.<\/p>\n
![\"india](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/india-mahdavi-we-are-ona-rose-draped-speakeasy-art-basel-paris-luca-pronzato-designboom-02.jpg\")
the industrial shell contrasts with Mahdavi\u2019s delicate transformation<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
DB: So, you wanted to create a contrast between something typically seen as masculine, like a car workshop, and a much softer, more delicate atmosphere?<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
IM:<\/strong> It\u2019s an old carrosserie that had been transformed into an office space, but there was still this roughness due to the industrial feel of the building. The way you enter is the main surprise element. But in any case, yes, it\u2019s a contrast: having this space, which is rough and completely covered in one pattern.<\/p>\n![\"india](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/india-mahdavi-we-are-ona-rose-draped-speakeasy-art-basel-paris-luca-pronzato-designboom-05.jpg\")
Mahdavi\u2019s design wraps the entire interior in a bespoke textile inspired by the Rose d\u2019Ispahan<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
DB: Could you elaborate on the design concept, especially the all-over textile treatment, and how it contributes to the tactile and immersive quality of the space?<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
IM: <\/strong>The fabric gives you a very special feel. I\u2019ve always been interested in designing patterns for fabrics or wallpapers, and that\u2019s part of my language. I use ornaments a lot in my work. It\u2019s a way of giving a new identity to a space that we\u2019re modifying. It\u2019s an efficient and beautiful way of doing that.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
At that moment, I was also designing a line of fabrics for this French company called Pierre Frey. So, we used that as a base, we took this fabric, scaled it, and worked with them to produce it. It\u2019s based on the rose. It\u2019s very fresh, very familiar, because we\u2019ve all seen homes covered with floral patterns, and I\u2019m just taking it to a different level, making it radical. It\u2019s an ode to soft power because soft power is something subtle that does exist, but when you have it all over, it becomes very powerful.<\/p>\n
![\"india](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/india-mahdavi-we-are-ona-rose-draped-speakeasy-art-basel-paris-luca-pronzato-designboom-03.jpg\")