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Los Angeles living room, 2012. Photo credit: Architectural Digest 2016

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The writer David Netto, explaining Catroux's importance in the design world says that he is "the missing link between the old and the new." (Netto, AD 2016)

Despite being known at first for his Mod, futuristic designs (such as the Schön atelier in Milan) his practice evolved to incorporate traditional furnishings into thoroughly new-feeling interiors. The mixtures of old and new, hard and soft, natural and industrial produced work that appealed to generations of families in homes across the world.

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One of the final homes Catroux designed was an apartment in Nice, France, where he continued a pattern of mixing clean lines and industrial materials like stainless steel with organic materials like this natural woven rug. (Willsher)

His rooms, while modern and sometimes sparsely decorated, never feel cold or sterile.

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Catroux's commissions included not only the land-based homes of this famous, wealthy clients, but a number of their yachts as well. In this photo we see the Eos, a 93-meter-long "motorsailer" built for fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg and her husband Barry Diller. Writing from her boat in 2015 von Furstenberg called Catroux's design "refined and functional, elegant and practical." (Netto)

Here again we see clean, modern lines that still covey warmth and comfort - avoiding the cold sterility evoked by some "modern" designs.

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Throughout his career Catroux included natural, organic elements like wicker furnishings, jute rugs and matchstick blinds that bring a light, indoor-outdoor feel to even his most richly decorated spaces.

For the guest room of this home in Provence Catroux has again mixed natural fibers (on the floor) with a cold, hard, architectural feeling element - the stacked-stone side tables. Those rough, modern tables also stand in contrast to the traditional shapes of the armchairs and bedframe.

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Photo credit: Horst P. Horst/Condé Nast archive

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Married to François in 1967, Betty Catroux was a model and muse to Yves Saint Laurent, and the dynamic other half of this jet-setting power couple. (Netto)

Both of them six feet tall and stylish, they met at Regine's, a storied Paris nightclub and later raised two daughters. (Reginato)

Betty helped bring creative, fashionable and wealthy clients into François' orbit, and was often photographed with him in their various Catroux-decorated homes.

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Mila Schön in her Milan atelier. Photo credit: New York Life Day by Day http://newyorkdaybyday.blogspot.com/2011/04/mila-schon.html

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At the age of 30 Catroux impressed the Italian fashion designer Mila Schön at a party, and was given the opportunity to design her new Milan showroom - his first major commission.

It was 1967, and Catroux turned the showroom "into a white laminate spaceship" (Green) and "a futuristic, minimalistic, theater-in-the-round for fashion - exactly right for the times." (Netto)

The space was photographed for the cover of L'Oeil, a prestigious French arts magazine in 1968, leading to more design commissions in Paris and New York. (Netto)

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The apartment Catroux designed for himself and Betty, on the Quai de Béthune in Paris featured this stainless-steel fireplace which was a signature element in his designs. In one iteration he accented the face "provocatively" with an 18th century clock, a classic Catroux mixing of old and new. (Netto)

In this room the hard, flat steel is paired with softer natural fibers on the walls, floors and sofa.

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François Catroux was born in Algeria in 1936, and by the age of 5 was already disappointed with his family's taste in furniture. As a child he attended school with the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who he would later cross paths with as adults in Paris. (Green)

He was self-taught, studying design by visiting famous homes and apartments when given the opportunity, especially during his stint as a location scout for Elle magazine in early-1960s New York. (Netto)

Catroux died in Paris in 2020. (Green)

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Loulou de la Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux, 1978. Photo credit: Guy Marineau/WWD

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Catroux "was at the center of Paris's glittering 1970s-era social scene, a complicated fantasia at which art, fashion and money collided." (Green)

Yves Saint Laurent and Hubert de Givenchy were competing for France in the Battle of Versailles, and Catroux was designing sleek yet complex homes incorporating both fresh and traditional elements, including one for himself and his wife Betty in their apartment on the Quai de Béthune.

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Diller and von Furstenberg home in Beverly Hills, 2012. Photo credit: François Halard

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"From the Archives: YSL Muse Betty Catroux." Accessed 1 June 2022. Women's Wear Daily. https://wwd.com/eye/people/gallery/from-the-archives-ysl-muse-betty-catroux-1203464932/from-the-archives-ysl-muse-betty-catroux/

Green, Penelope. "François Catroux, Decorator of Choice for Aristocrats, Dies at 83." 18 November 2020. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/obituaries/francois-catroux-dead.html

Hinous, Pascal - photographer. "François Catroux's Paris Apartment." 31 July 1976. Architectural Digest. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/francois-catroux-paris-apartment-1976-slideshow

"Mila Schön." 16 April 2011. New York Life Day by Day. http://newyorkdaybyday.blogspot.com/2011/04/mila-schon.html

Moss, Jack. "The Legendary 1970s Fashion Show That Pitched France Against America." 18 April 2018. AnOther Magazine. https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/10760/the-legendary-1970s-fashion-show-that-pitched-france-against-america

Netto, David. François Catroux. Rizzoli. 2016.

Netto, David. "Why François Catroux Is the French Design Master You Should Know." 15 September 2016. Architectural Digest. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/why-francois-catroux-is-the-french-design-master-you-should-know

Reginato, James. "The Secrets of François Catroux, the Über-Rich's Favorite Interior Designer." 11 August 2016. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/08/francois-catroux-interior-designer

Willsher, Kim. "'Unmatched': contents of 70s French power couple's final bolthole up for auction." 7 January 2022. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/07/contents-of-70s-french-power-couple-final-bolthole-up-for-auction-betty-francois-catroux