Into the blue...

Regular readers will know what a massive part Jaipur plays in the Dilli Grey story – as home to most our incredible artisans, it also inspires many of our bestselling collections. Nicknamed the ‘pink city’ because of the stunning coral walls which surrounds the old town, adorned with beautiful carvings and paintings it is iconic in its design and what makes it a destination for travel style blogger… it's the ultimate Instagrammable wall!

For Dilli Grey, I travel to Jaipur frequently and one of my favourite haunts on each trip is the stunning Bar Palladio, nestled in the restored Gardens of the iconic Narain Niwas Palace Hotel. Colour maven Marie-Anne Oudejans, fashion star-turned interior designer, has tapped into her fashion expertise to pull off the amazing interiors there.


Rewind 30 years and at the start of my fashion career in the 90s, Tocca was one of those iconic beautiful brands. Marie-Anne was at the helm and I hugely admired the delicate embroideries and feminine touch in her designs. Since then she’s evolved her career and turned her talents to interiors, yet always holding on to that signature feminine aesthetic.

Bar Palladio is one of my favourite examples of her style, and in one of my favourite cities – talk about stars aligning! It’s no surprise then that the blue palette she uses has been a massive style influence in my own design work. 

The bluey green hues of a peacock are often misquoted as being Marie-Anne’s style inspiration, but she disagrees: ‘people just enjoy all the shades of the colour blue—from teal to azure. Blue has traditionally had a masculine overtone, and that was the intended mood, to give the place a "gentlemen's club vibe", while still being decadent, luxurious, and royal—in both a Victorian and maharaja style.”

By using delicate organic prints and intricate lacework detailing, she's injected her feminine touch and softened that masculine aesthetic.

The room in this picture actually inspired the colour of the Dilli Grey branding - it feels so very Indian and modern at the same time.

I feel such affinity with her design process - her approach of breathing a contemporary feel into a traditional technique really resonates with what I want to achieve in my own designs at Dilli Grey. I am always striving to add a modern touch to the traditional production methods we use (hand-block printing, embroidery and quilting) by using a modern palette to keep it calm, simple and accessible in this frenetic world we are living in. Pure escapism.