Sara Silm lives in a Béarnaise village at the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains. Inspired by the colours of southwest France, her book How to French Country is a comprehensive guide to surrounding yourself with French country style. Capturing the beauty of the region, stylist, photographer and journalist, Sara distils the unique colours, textures and flavours of this distinctive corner of France.
Here she shares her love of the many shades of French blues and greens:
As a colour enthusiast, I well remember my first months in the Béarn, walking around local villages with my head constantly cranking upwards, then forwards, then up again as I collected photos of shutters and doors in their hundreds. I saw shutters in my sleep; subtle shades of blue so close to one another… yet just different enough to make me revisit those houses again and again. What was it that made them so special, I wondered; there couldn’t have been that many shades available fifty or sixty years ago when they were painted. And then I realised: this was the baked-in patina. I began to notice that the blue-painted shutters and doors on south-facing sides of the buildings were slightly more sun-faded compared with their north-facing cousins; these were more weather-beaten in appearance, after decades of being battered by storms blown inland from the Atlantic. Some paint colours were so old – and flaking away badly – that only a single precious chip remained, clinging to the timber. It was at this stage that I decided to start collecting samples and convert each one into an international paint code that could be authentically reproduced to create an exact version of the original.
Like any collector, I wanted to keep a record, an archive, safely stored away. But I also did it because there’s one question I’m always asked by people who’ve visited France and left with a burning desire to bring a little bit of it back to their home: ‘How do I find the perfect French blue?’ (Followed by: ‘where would I find that beautiful green door colour?’…)
There are certainly plenty of commercial colours that fulfil this brief to perfection, and I’ve arranged a series of colour choices for you. But what you can’t find in a paint catalogue are the paint codes I’ve created myself. I’ve collected these colours in the same way a mad botanist walks the fields and mountains collecting plants and seeds. Some of them will never be seen again, because their years of patina will have disintegrated into tiny fragments by the time you read this…
The colours have been categorised into the towns in which they were found and paired with their National Colour System (NCS) to create a kind of colour by numbers, if you will. So, if you see a colour that would be perfect for you, simply take the code to a paint-supply store with the facilities for mixing international paint colours and, with the shake of a tin, it will be yours.
Just one example of many colour charts in the book.
How to French Country: Colour and design inspiration from south-west France – the ultimate guide to surrounding yourself with French country style, wherever you are. From deep in the countryside of southwest France comes a comprehensive guide to surrounding yourself with French country style wherever you are. Capturing the beauty and tranquility of the region, interior designer and journalist Sara Silm distills the unique colours, textures, and flavours of this distinctive corner of the world. Available from Amazon and all good book stores (Published by Thames & Hudson).
