A beauty salon inspired by thirties film stars

Proudly displaying vintage furnishings purchased at Italian antiques markets as far apart as Lucca and Parma along with damask motif wallpaper, crystal chandeliers, vintage sofas and cement floor tiles reminiscent of twenties and thirties décor, the Thy Madame beauty salon has clearly espoused an ultra-chic London hipster style. And if we weren’t looking out onto Via Cavour in Pistoia, we could easily imagine being in one of the shops in Covent Garden or Tottenham Court Road. This was clearly the aim of the owner Timothy Gori, who already had two other salons in the same style (Thy Hair and Thy Barber) and was thinking about opening another vintage space in his city when he found himself in Rotterdam (another hipster capital) to attend a training course at the famous Schorem hairstyling school. During his stay in the Dutch city, he visited the Madame Pompidou beauty salon and was so impressed that he decided to go ahead with the Thy Madame project, which was opened in February 2017. “The key to the project was to do everything in strictly vintage style while fulfilling the technical requirements of a hairdressing shop. The end result is a blend of furniture purchased at antiques markets, custom-designed furnishings crafted by master carpenters and technical materials,” explained Chiara Bartolini from Neos Studio Srl, the design and distribution firm tasked with supplying the materials. The search for furnishing elements was so meticulous that the project took a year before it got under way. “Some of them are genuine antiques kept in their original state. Others have been restored, while some like the bar counter were built from scratch by local artisans,” continued Bartolini. The design firm collaborated with Moira Baldi, an interior furnishing expert who advised the client and helped to create this harmonious result based on a well-defined style. “Right from the word go the owners said they didn’t want any standard furnishings except for the styling chairs,” she explained. “Everything was to be unique and original.” As a result, one of the walls is decorated with Colefax and Fowler wallpaper with an elegant gold and ivory damask motif, while the others feature vertically striped handmade decorations in powder pink and ivory shades custom-designed by the interior decorator as the ideal backdrop for the thirties style photographs. But according to Neos Studio, the real highlight of the interior design is the floor. “Everything was designed in accordance with the floor and its colours,” said Bartolini. It consists of a successful combination of three porcelain tile lines from Ceramica Fioranese: Cementine 20, Evo and Retrò, all inspired by early twentieth century coloured floors. They are framed by wooden profiles as if they were each a painting. One wall displays the famous phrase uttered by Coco Chanel: “Fashion fades, only style remains the same”. And it is precisely this spirit that is evoked by Thy Madame. Rather than just hair styling it is a celebration of all aspects of lifestyle, the embodiment of a philosophy of life, a world in which personal care inspired a more authentic and original glamour that customers are invited to savour during delicious breakfasts and aperitifs.