Uncanny Studio's Églantine Sicat & Pauline Dellemotte On Layering Spaces With Stories

House Guest by Country & Town House | Interior Designer Interviews

This episode features an interview with Églantine Sicat and Pauline Dellemotte, the founders of Uncanny Studio, a Franco-British interior de

Key takeaways

• Uncanny Studio was officially established in 2024 to unify two separate design entities under a single, cohesive brand.
• The designers utilize a 'narrative-driven' process where every material and layout choice must support a central story or brief.

Main topics

• Origins of Uncanny Studio
• Artistic integration in interior design

Notable quotes

Spaces should tell stories.

Conclusion

The episode provides an inspiring look at how professional synergy and

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) How do we feel the space? How do we touch? How do we smell it? What is the first thing when we get into the space? Do we have that wow effect? Do we want to keep a bit of the surprise? So we really create this layering in the story until we deliver. Eglantine Sicat Speaker 1 (0:17) and Pauline Delamotte of Creative and Design Practice Uncanny Studio challenge conventional thinking. They take clients on a journey of emotions, sensations and memories. Speaker 1 (0:31) Pauline Delamotte and Eglantine Sikat of Uncanny Studio are a Franco-British interior design studio built on a shared belief that spaces should tell stories. The studio's hospitality and residential projects skillfully blend mid-century elegance with contemporary flair, designed to leave a memory and foster special experiences. So welcome, Pauline and Eglantine. Nice to see you. Nice to see you, Carol. Thank you for the invite. Absolute pleasure. And I should say that we met at last year's PAD Art Fair in Berkeley Square in London. And I've been really, really desperate to sit down and chat to you guys more. We did meet over a, did we have tea or did we have a glass of champagne? I think we may have had a glass of champagne. Anyway, it was really lovely. Speaker 1 (1:26) But it's quite difficult with you two because you are based between, you have a studio in Paris and also in London and obviously work across the two. And you've only been going just over two years, which is also extraordinary considering that... You both have a wealth of experience behind you and you were both really cracking on together with your own design businesses. So what made you decide that you were going to be better as a couple, as a team? Speaker 2 (1:58) I think it's a great question. Like we've been working together in the reality, in the background for more than two years. But Pauline and I met through a common friends a few years ago, like more than a few years ago, like seven, eight years ago, through a common French friend at a dinner. And we were at that dinner. We sat down at the opposite of the table. And what is fun is like sometime when life wants you to meet, like clearly we had to meet up. But at that night, we haven't spoken because we were at the end of the table. So we left at dinner. And a few weeks later, at the time, I was starting to work as a consultant for the Edding Group, for the Locke Hotel brand. Speaker 1 (2:39) That's the brand in Kensington. Yes. You completed that hotel in Kensington. Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:45) Exactly. And also the one in Lisbon. So we've done like, after that, we've done a design for them in Lisbon and one in Kensington. But at the time I was working, I was starting to put a fit in that. hospitality world and I was working with the great boss but at the time he was like check that new studio they are up and coming they just designed a new look for us and I actually go on the website check the face of the people because I'm very curious and I need to put a face on who I'm talking to and I see Pauline's face on the on the website and I'm like oh my god I've seen that girl before so I called my friend and I was like could you confirm this was one of the girls that was at the dinner and she was like yes absolutely she just started there she loved it so I got in touch and I was like look I think we are working for the same client at two different ends and how uncanny this is how we met so we started before anything and then I think life turned out to be quite quick after that because Pauline was in that studio in East London. I was working as a consultant for Locke. And then we had some project coming in. So at the time, I had my own company called Maison Auguste. And Pauline set up her own company a few months later. So we were working as a duo, but actually with two separate entities until the point where... the message to the press and to the world to have two companies, to have two French names that were very difficult to pronounce. Everything was a bit too chaotic for everyone. So we decided it made sense to move forward in 2024 and set up a new studio with like a grounded message. So that's the story of the birth of Uncanny Studio. Speaker 1 (4:30) And Pauline, art is very much... I know we met at an art exhibition, but also art and bespoke items are very much part of your design philosophy. Tell us a little bit about your background and why art is so important. Speaker 3 (4:49) I think it's quite funny, as Eglantine said, we met at a moment of our life where also we realized we had a lot in common. So we both studied in Paris initially and I studied architecture, but it's the school that partners with the fine arts in Paris. So it has always had this sort of artistic approach. It was not so much about construction. It was more about like conceptual, how to think about spaces, how to experience spaces. kind of from the beginning brought the art dimension into the way we work. And Eglotin studied at the Art Décoratif of Paris, which is more about interior design and like objects. And I think... We're very curious, so we love going to galleries, love going to the museum. And Eglot loves to find unknown artists and give them opportunities to feature in our projects. So the way we work, we always tend to be involved, or we try, up until the styling, the art curation. And that's always an opportunity to look at who's around in the sites that we're in. If there's local, upcoming people doing beautiful things, and it goes from paintings. sculpture, flower arrangements. It's a very open opportunity of collaboration. So art is important for us because we also feel like it finishes the space. It really gives this sort of identity and final aesthetic to a Speaker 1 (6:12) space. And when you begin a new project, what does the creative process look like between the two of you? Do you divide roles or design collaboratively? Speaker 2 (6:26) A bit of both, I would say. We are very complementary. As Pauline was saying, we have different backgrounds in terms of studies. So I think it defines our approach a little bit differently to each subject. But we designed together clearly like, I mean, to give you an example, Pauline was on holidays a couple of weeks ago and I had to do something on my own, which I could do and I did deliver. But it's very hard to not have that, you know, mirror back on the other side that no is going to challenge you. So the way we do approach a new project is like, usually we have a brief from our client and from that point onwards, we create a narrative, we create a story because we believe that. our style can adapt to our clients. Like we can develop pretty much anything, but we need to have a strong narration. We need to have a strong story where we relate to that all the time. So each decision we make, we are going to confront that to... some of our pillars, some of our like core skeleton. And we build that core skeleton and then we build around, we put the layers, like we decide on the material. Does it make sense with that scope? Maybe, maybe not. Or actually, no, it's, you know, it's too hard to go. And like the brief is to be brutalist. So like we always go back to that narrative and we create a story. And that's what we try to explain to our clients, even though we've