Nobody does rich girl interiors quite like the French. The rich girl design of today finds its roots in French design’s forte: Georgian Rococo style. Ornate detailing, gilding and lots of light.
This month on Broke in Tweed, we’re honouring and observing the rich girl. We’re explaining why the rich girl design style is so alluring in a cost of living crisis, dissecting popular culture’s rich girl design moments and offering guides to help you get the look.
But we can’t skirt around the topic of what rich girl design meant historically. To understand the OG rich girl, we went to the Palace of Versailles’ “apartments of the Madames” in the central wing reserved for Louis XV’s daughters to find out what is deemed fitting for a princess and why it has survived almost three centuries of design evolution.
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What Makes The OG Rich Girl Design Unique?
Unlike the rich girls of today, they weren’t afraid of maximalism. This is because the pre-revolution attitude towards wealth was one of pride. There was no fear in flaunting what you had or being extravagant (despite their cost of living crisis being arguably more dire).
If you look at the wall, you’ll notice the marble skirting boards which extend to the door architraves. We love these rose honed marble skirting tiles from Tiles Direct to achieve a similar, softer look. Both real marble and imitation marble, it is the OG rich girl’s version of colour contrasting, proving that our archaic rule of painting skirting, door surrounds and ceilings white isn’t as “old” or “traditional” as we think.
What you can’t see in the image above is the ostrich feathers used almost as finials at the top of the bed canopy—a motif used on every canopy bed we saw in the main palace and houses in the estate of Trianon. If you’re not afraid to ruffle some feathers, why not get a faux ostrich feather chandelier?
The lesson? Nothing’s too loud when everything’s already shouting.
They were also unafraid of matching (sorry to all modern interior designers). They could use the same damask fabric to upholster the bed, the canopy, the chairs and the walls and not feel that it was ever too much. And contextualised by the opulence of the palace walls, it really wasn’t too much. Rather than feel clashy or tacky, it actually felt seamless and meant that the various pieces of furniture around the room could blend into the background and not create more drama than they’re worth.
What Makes The OG Rich Girl Design Timeless?
They loved to experiment with various textures and shapes. The flooring is perhaps the most underrated yet unique detail of the apartments. First laid in the palace in 1684, Versailles parquet flooring has kept the name ever since, highlighting the impact that French royalty and the French court has had on interior design. If you’re loving the style, the most affordable quality offering on the market right now is B&Q’s Staccato Laminate Flooring.
It’s also a portal to the past. As they collected Roman busts, so we collect French antique furniture and art in efforts to connect ourselves to their legacy. The design of the OG rich girl is timeless because it doesn’t pretend to be groundbreaking—they accept that this is just their take on a historical style, keeping what they love and ignoring what they don’t to create a cohesive look that reflects them. It is a contribution to a design style that has been developing for millenia and will continue to expand (provided we have the money for it).
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