Christiane Lemieux

11/04/2026

Before Marrakech, everything was black,” Yves Saint Laurent said. “Marrakech taught me colour.”

He and Pierre Bergé first came to Marrakech in 1966. In 1974 they bought Dar Es Saada, “the house of happiness,” and gave its interiors to their friend Bill Willis, an American decorator from Tennessee who made Marrakech his home.

Next door was the garden the painter Jacques Majorelle had planted from 1923, and the ultramarine he created in 1937 that still carries his name. After his death the garden fell into neglect. In 1980 Saint Laurent and Bergé bought it to save it from developers and brought it back to life. “Morocco was where we were the happiest,” Bergé said.

Why does that blue stay with us? In a classic study of colour and emotion, blues and greens were rated among the most pleasant colours we see (Valdez & Mehrabian, 1994). Scenes with water were rated more beautiful and more restorative than scenes without (White et al., 2010).

Which blue would you live with? 💙

Villa Majorelle, Marrakech: photographs by for
Interiors by Bill Willis, from Bill Willis by Marian McEvoy (Éditions Jardin Majorelle), photographer
Rooms:

11/03/2026

Round 06 is light, and it’s a 1950s standoff. 🇮🇹 or 🇫🇷?

A: Carlo Scarpa for Venini, Murano. Hundreds of hand-blown glass facets that turn a room into sparkle.

B: Serge Mouille, Paris. A trained silversmith who found the Italian lamps of his day far too complicated. His answer: black aluminum, a touch of brass, a few steel arms. Nothing else.

In 1952 the lighting designer Richard Kelly gave us the words for it: “play of brilliants” versus “focal glow.” Your brain has an opinion about both, and I’ll tell you why in the results.

Vote A or B in the comments. 👇

Bonus question at the end. Watch for the myth-buster.

Images courtesy of and

11/02/2026

This is good for your brain.

Neuroaesthetics is the science of beauty and the brain. When you see something beautiful, the front of your brain lights up. In one study, just a minute or two of looking at art on a screen lifted people’s mood and eased anxiety.

Today: RED, and here’s why.

1. Red sharpens your focus on detail.
Mehta & Zhu, Science, 2009

2. Red makes you move faster and stronger.
Elliot & Aarts, Emotion, 2011

3. Red reads as warmth and attraction.
Elliot & Niesta, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008

4. After black and white, red is the first colour every language names.
Berlin & Kay, Basic Color Terms, 1969

Watch it again. It’s good for your brain.

Mood study: Trupp et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2022. Brain study: Ishizu & Zeki, PLoS ONE, 2011.
Art: Henri Matisse, The Dessert: Harmony in Red, 1908, State Hermitage Museum. Claude Monet, Poppy Field, 1873, Musée d’Orsay . Katsushika Hokusai, Fine Wind, Clear Morning, c. 1830–32. All public domain.

Neuroaesthetics by Lemieux et Cie

11/01/2026

This is a love story. Not between two people who find each other, but between beauty and the master craftspeople who make it.

I travel the world to find the ones who still make art by hand. Outside Saigon, I found Tommy, a master ceramicist. He calls me CL, and every time I try my Duolingo Vietnamese, the whole workshop laughs.

Everything starts as red earth, shaped by hand on the wheel and fired in brick kilns that burn wood. Wood fire is never consistent, so the reactive glaze bubbles and pools into colours no one can plan. Turquoise, lapis, rust and rose. No two pieces are ever the same.

Tommy and I have spent two years perfecting this together, and I’ve learned the kiln is our real design partner.

So that’s my love story. With the craft, with the people, and with the hands that make something this beautiful.

And this week, they finally landed in New York. Come put your hands on them at 161 Grand Street.

This is Provenance. Episode 1: Vietnam.

10/30/2026

Can Halloween be chic? Yes, baby.

Skulls from Amazon. Ferns from the corner deli. A bedsheet, a scrap of lace, and a grosgrain ribbon, which goes the distance.

Five skulls is a centrepiece. Six is a personality.

No inflatable pumpkins were harmed in the making of this table. 🖤

Happy Halloween from Lemieux et Cie.

10/29/2026

10/28/2026

This is good for your brain.

Neuroaesthetics is the science of beauty and the brain. When you see something beautiful, the front of your brain lights up. In one study, just a minute or two of looking at art on a screen lifted people’s mood and eased anxiety.

Today: GREEN, and here’s why.

1. Your eyes see green best. Human vision is most sensitive to yellow-green light.
CIE luminosity standard, 1924

2. A glimpse of green boosts creativity.
Lichtenfeld et al., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2012

3. Forty seconds of looking at green restores your focus.
Lee et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2015

4. A green view helps you heal. Surgery patients with a view of trees went home sooner.
Ulrich, Science, 1984

Watch it again. It’s good for your brain.

Mood study: Trupp et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2022. Brain study: Ishizu & Zeki, PLoS ONE, 2011.
Art: Claude Monet, Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies, 1899, and Henri Rousseau, The Repast of the Lion, c. 1907, both . Vincent van Gogh, Irises, 1889, . All public domain.

Neuroaesthetics by Lemieux et Cie

10/27/2026

This is Oxytocin Boost. One beautiful thing, and the neuroscience behind it.

01 · BLUE, in four studies.

1. Your eyes have cells tuned to blue. They talk directly to your brain’s clock.
Berson, Dunn & Takao, Science, 2002

2. Your brain reads blue as safe. Clear sky. Clean water.
Palmer & Schloss, PNAS, 2010

3. Blue is the favourite colour across cultures.
Hurlbert & Ling, Current Biology, 2007

4. Blue makes you more creative.
Mehta & Zhu, Science, 2009

I have always been drawn to blue rooms. Now I know why.
Save this for your next blue room. Next: green.

Neuroaesthetics by Lemieux et Cie

Featured products: Elysees Dining Table, Rozette Dining / Side Chair, Dorelle Chandelier, Creased Rolled Bowls, Cornet 4 Light Large Chandelier, Avenir Bed, Étretat Limited Edition Art Print

10/26/2026

What does your brain prefer?

A. The Kiss by Auguste Rodin. He conceived it around 1882 for The Gates of Hell. Every muscle, every touch. Your brain feels it in its own body.
In 1907, a young Romanian sculptor went to work in Rodin’s studio. He left within weeks. “Nothing grows in the shade of large trees.” His name was Constantin Brancusi.

B. Brancusi’s answer. Two lovers carved from a single block, sharing one eye. Nothing to decode. He carved The Kiss again and again for thirty years.
I’ve photographed them both many times. Vote A or B in the comments. There’s no wrong answer. I’m collecting your votes to see what our brains have in common.

Bonus question: Rodin’s lovers were first meant to be who?
Romeo and Juliet
Paolo and Francesca, from Dante
Adam and Eve

Results in the next video. Good luck!

Photography by me, courtesy of and
Music: an original piano waltz for the Paris of Satie, Brancusi’s dear friend.

10/25/2026

Your brain decides if it loves art before you do.

Psychologists call it affective primacy. Feeling arrives first. Thinking follows. Constantin Brancusi seemed to know this a century ago.

I have loved Brancusi my whole life. I stood in the MoMA yesterday with the artist Gunnar Theel, whose work is in the Met. Neither of us spoke. He told me art starts in silence.

The science agrees.

Silence. Silent pauses between pieces of music lowered heart rate and blood pressure more than the music itself (Bernardi, 2006).

Simplicity. The easier a form is for the brain to process, the more pleasure we feel (Reber, Schwarz & Winkielman, 2004).

Curves. The brain prefers curves. Sharp angles activate the amygdala, our threat detector (Bar & Neta, 2006).

The hand. Seeing the trace of an artist’s gesture activates our own motor cortex (Umiltà, 2012).

Up. We read up as good, hopeful, rising (Meier & Robinson, 2004).

The Endless Column was inaugurated in 1938 in Târgu Jiu, Romania. It honours the soldiers who fell defending the town in 1916. Grief, turned toward the sky.

I previewed Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio at MoMA yesterday. It opens today and runs through February 27, 2027. Go. Stand still. Look up.

Which form stopped you?

Photography by me, archival film courtesy of and