A small studio, by design.
We have stayed deliberately small for fifteen years. It is the only way we know to give each project the attention it deserves.
Founded on a single, stubborn belief.
Atelier Noir began in 2009 in a borrowed workshop in Colaba, with one carpenter, a drawing board, and a conviction that good interiors are not assembled from catalogues but composed, slowly, from the life that will happen inside them.
Fifteen years on, we work between Mumbai and Milan, but little else has changed. We still draw by hand before we draw by machine. We still take only a handful of projects a year. And we still believe the best compliment a room can receive is that it feels as though it could not have been any other way.
Warm minimalism — but never cold.
We are minimalists who distrust the word. Restraint, to us, is not the absence of warmth; it is the discipline that lets warmth be felt. We edit hard so that what remains can breathe.
Four principles, quietly held.
Material Honesty
We use real things — stone, timber, lime, brass — and let them show their grain, their seams, their age. Nothing pretends to be what it is not.
Considered Restraint
We remove until removing more would break the room. The luxury is in the space we leave empty as much as the objects we place.
Built to Last
Every piece is made to be repaired, not replaced. We design for the patina of decades, not the applause of a season.
One Studio, Start to Finish
The hand that sketches the concept is the hand that places the final object. No outsourced taste, no diluted vision.
Few hands, fully committed.
Ishaan Varma
Founder & Principal Designer
Trained as an architect in Mumbai and Milan, Ishaan founded Atelier Noir to work at a slower, more material scale than buildings allowed. He leads every project personally.
Sofia Marchetti
Design Director
Milan-born and Florence-trained, Sofia shapes the studio's material language and oversees our Italian workshop partners. She has an unforgiving eye for proportion.
Rohan Pillai
Head of Workshop
A third-generation cabinetmaker, Rohan turns drawings into objects. If a joint can be made stronger or a curve made truer, he will find the way.
Aanya Desai
Studio & Client Director
Aanya keeps every project honest to its budget and its timeline, and is the calm voice clients reach first. Nothing leaves the studio without passing her.