“A garden is a place of peace, a place of light, a place of nature, where I imagine nature living according to its own pace, within its own disparities and according to its own balance.”
ILARIA DE MOUSTIER, HAPPY HEALTHY ILA
Ilaria de Moustier is the founder of Happy Healthy Ila, a life coaching system that helps empower women to achieve inner balance and to reach their full potential. Ilaria established her business after six months of solo travel through Asia and after completing a masters in neuroscience and NLP. Ilaria took time to speak to us about how her inner garden is linked to her love of meditation.
What comes to mind when you hear the word garden?
A garden is a place of peace, a place of light, a place of nature, where I imagine nature living according to its own pace, within its own disparities and according to its own balance.
What is the secret garden that helps you recharge your batteries?
There’s something very powerful that I have recently discovered. It’s meditation. It’s literally a moment of pause in a world in which we are very connected to what is outside of us. We have lost the habit of re-connecting to what is inside. So, meditation, simply taking the time to breathe, to look through the window as you drink your tea. A moment of inner thought to search for the right answers.
Why does everyone need a secret garden?
Today we need a secret garden because we have lost the habit, we have lost time. I feel like time doesn’t belong to us: that we always give it to someone or something else. But time isn’t really time, it’s life. So, I think it’s important to have a moment, an activity. Something that allows us to take a step back and go into the unknown that is inside of us.
What is your favourite fragrance from Le Jardin Retrouvé?
It’s Tubéreuse Trianon, for its very warm but also very earthy notes that are close to nature. It’s a fragrance that evokes something round, something complete. It warms my heart and makes me happy.
“Every time I go to my back garden to sit for a while, I feel a lot of energy from the aura of heaven and earth. The garden’s a place of relaxation for me.“
JULIET GUO, SANDRIVER
Juliet Guo is the founder of luxury independent cashmere brand, Sandriver. Working within an ethos of sustainability and with an artisanal eye for design, Juliet is celebrating her twentieth year as a successful businesswoman. Sandriver continues to nurture business relationships at all levels from creators and clients, to the highly valued community herdsman who supply her authentic source materials. Juliet took time out from her day to talk to Le Jardin Retrouvé about what gardens mean to her.
What comes to mind when you hear the word garden?
Whenever I talk about the word “garden”, I think of the special pleasure I feel in my body and mind. Every time I go to my back garden to sit for a while, I feel a lot of energy from the aura of heaven and earth. The garden is a place of relaxation for me.
What is the secret garden that helps you recharge your batteries?
A garden is a nurturing place for women who are starting their own business. It is like a nurturing place for body and soul. It can take me from the fierce competition into a quiet state. Also, it allows me to experience more of the energy that nature gives me. We can be more peaceful; we can be quieter. We can have more of our own thoughts bursting out so it gives me more energy.
Why does everyone need a secret garden?
In fact, the secret garden for each person it is the place where we cultivate our body and soul. When we feel tired, when we feel exhausted, we go to see the plants to see the different plants in the garden gloriously blooming.
What is your favourite fragrance from Le Jardin Retrouvé?
My favourite fragrance is Rose Trocadéro. It gives me the same feeling as when I am walking in the streets of Paris. Every note of this city that has accumulated, it gives me a lot to think about. When I returned to Shanghai, I felt that the city of Shanghai has a natural link with Paris. This perfume is a link between us all over the world. It’s a link to the journey that each of us takes.
“I think there’s something really beautiful about knowing you have an inner space that belongs to you and that you can visualise that.“
Melissa Unger
Melissa Unger is an artist, writer and creative director whose projects have been featured around the world in ELLE Magazine, Marie Claire, New York Magazine, EL PAIS and Die Zeit, to name but a few. She is the founder of the unique Seymour + in Paris, a place where the general public used to disconnect from the “technology-tether” of modern life: a spa for the mind. Now she lives in Brooklyn, working on developing Seymour Projects. Melissa was the perfect choice to talk to us about inner gardens and the feeling of sanctuary.
What comes to your mind when you hear the word garden?
For me what comes to mind when I hear the word garden is community. I love being in gardens because it’s a non-verbal way of communing so what I love about gardens is that there’s a couple of the senses that we use to engage in everyday life that are not there, so there’s no language, there’s no energy from another person to navigate. There’s just a really calming aspect of it for me. I also love to see all the different plants and all the different flowers cohabiting peacefully.
What is the secret garden that helps you recharge your batteries?
The way that I really recharge the most and connect to myself is through my watercolours which I do every morning. I started doing it two years ago and they’re really a way of me being able to connect with my feeling states rather than my thinking states, so it gets me out of my head and I get into this beautiful playful flow space with them.
Why does everyone need a secret garden?
You don’t know your own north when you’re around people or other circumstances. Things can easily get pulled in different directions and I think there’s something really beautiful about knowing you have an inner space that belongs to you and that you can visualise that. So inner gardens, when we talk about creating havens and spaces that we go to when we’re outside of ourselves like monasteries or churches or whatever, you can totally create that visual in your imagination and place that space within yourself, in your heart and your stomach.
What is your favourite Le Jardin Retrouvé fragrance?
I love Rose Trocadéro. I’ve had a love affair with roses for six or seven years now. I don’t know why I have such an affinity for this flower but it’s really been softening me and it’s really very healing. So, a fragrance like Rose Trocadéro I’m completely drawn to and I also like its other notes. I just feel like it’s perfect. It’s not just sweet, it reminds me of imagination and creativity.
“That secret garden is the moment when for an instant, we get to spend time with ourselves, a time to think.“
Laetitia Lumbroso
Meet Laetitia Lumbroso, founder of independent French fashion brand D’ESTRËE and the first in our Women’s Inner Gardens series to celebrate International Women’s Day 2021. A native Parisian who loves exploring her home city, Laetitia took time out from her busy schedule to answer our questions about her inner garden and what it means to her.
What comes to mind when you hear the word garden?
A lot of things come to mind. Spontaneously I think of nature, simplicity, of moments with my family, children. I also think of other things such as French gardens like Versailles and Chambord. I have spent time in the Chambord Gardens in spring and it’s quite magical. I love the work of architect Le Nôtre, who created gardens in a search for perfection, the search for the perfect French garden.
What secret garden helps you recharge your batteries?
I am a Parisian and I have spent a lot of time walking in Paris for a year now and in a way my secret garden is that moment when I get to spend time with myself on those long walks in Paris. I can walk for two hours straight, admiring the architecture and the buildings. I would say thats the moment when I recharge. The city of Paris is my inner garden.
Why does everyone need a secret garden?
I think we lead quite busy and full lives. We run around all day. We have work, children and family constraints. That secret garden is the moment when for an instant, we get to spend time with ourselves, a time to think, so it’s important to take that time for yourself.
What is your favourite Le Jardin Retrouvé fragrance?
It’s a hard question because there are a lot of fragrances that are extremely different from anything else and that are very endearing. If I had to pick one it would be Eau des Délices which has an astringent yet warm quality. It transports me to the South of France and even Italy. It’s a fragrance that makes me happy and I am pleased to be wearing it today.
