"Medieval Boudoir: When the Middle Ages Meet Modern Vanity"

A new series coming soon - Exclusive preview for Hotel Madame guests

There's something deeply fascinating about the moment when a woman prepares herself for herself, far from the world's gaze. That ancient, ritualistic gesture of looking in the mirror, arranging her hair, choosing what to reveal and what to conceal. It's an act of personal sovereignty that spans centuries, from medieval ladies in their towers to modern women in their private boudoirs.

I'm working on a new series that combines two of my obsessions: the timeless elegance of Art Déco and the mysterious allure of medieval aesthetics. Not the Middle Ages from history books, but the one imagined and reinvented in the 1920s by illustrators like Chéri Hérouard for La Vie Parisienne - a Middle Ages filtered through a modern, sensual, ironically aware gaze.

This illustration you see is the first study for the "Medieval Boudoir" series. A nude woman, seated in a relaxed pose, looks at herself in a hand mirror while wearing an elaborate medieval headdress - that type of netted hennin that fifteenth-century ladies wore with pride. The contrast is deliberate: the naked body, vulnerable and intimate, against the most formal and structured accessory of the medieval era. It's the private versus the public, the real woman versus her social mask.

We're witnessing a powerful return of gothic-romantic aesthetics - that mix of tactile richness, heavy velvets, and nostalgia for spaces that seem to exist outside of time. But unlike traditional fantasy, this revival seeks intimacy, not epic tales. We're not interested in battles or dragons. We're interested in bedrooms with velvet canopies, gothic windows filtering moonlight, the private beauty rituals that happened far from court.

This is one of the first sketches - you can see how I'm still exploring the palette (black, gold, smoke grey) and playing with the contrast between soft body lines and rigid accessory geometries. The complete series will include four different moments of feminine intimacy in settings that evoke imaginary castles: dressing, bathing, resting, contemplation. Always with that delicate balance between historical and contemporary, between erotic and artistic.

Over the coming months I'll share here on Hotel Madame the evolution of this series: more sketches, color tests, technical details, and of course the final versions before they arrive in the collection. It's one of the privileges of being part of this community: witnessing the work being born, entering the creative process, discovering the references and inspirations that transform an idea into a finished piece.

What do you think of this first sketch? Does the idea of a "medieval boudoir" intrigue you? Let me know in the comments - your feedback is precious as I develop the series.

The complete works of the "Medieval Boudoir" series will be available in limited edition starting in December. Hotel Madame guests will have exclusive early access.

Did you know that in the fifteenth century, the height of a lady's hennin headdress indicated her social rank? The taller it was, the more powerful her family. The Church even condemned it as "sinful vanity" - which naturally made it even more desirable. Some things never change.