The Creative Director of Dahm House Nestles in the Treetops of Paris
Catharine Dahm shares a peek into her "peanut-sized Parisian apartment."
Catharine Dahm, creative director and founder of her clothing line Dahm House and its accompanying magazine, refers to her “peanut-sized Parisian apartment” as le nid, or the nest. “It’s a tiny space in a big world that I can call home after having flown so far from where I come from,” she comments. Originally from the countryside in Indiana, she deeply values the view from her fourth-floor perch overlooking the Siberian elms, maples, and chestnut trees of Square Gardette. “There’s a little gap in the trees outside of my windows that widens as the seasons change, and when autumn comes, the gap widens to expose the Haussmann buildings across the park,” she explains. “I like to feel the circularity of the seasons through the view. It’s really grounding yet regenerative.”
The size of her nest means the space has to perform many functions. Her living area is anchored by a long cherry wood table that runs the length of one of its walls. “It’s an old work table that’s seen its share of life; completely buckled on one side and eaten away at parts, but its symbolism makes me happy,” she explains. “It’s a place to cut fabrics, roll out pie dough, host Thanksgiving dinner, take meetings, and display various objects that give meaning to the space.” Indeed, almost every item in her home carries sentimental or symbolic meaning—from a Laique perfume vase and ring dish gifted to her by the first family to host her in Paris, to a painted armoire that holds her special dinnerware, to an original lithograph by Étienne Hajdú, an Hungarian-French sculptor who fought in the French resistance during WWII. A print from a gallery opening of one of her favorite artists, Marc Chagall, sits in the corner by the table. “I feel a kinship with Chagall and his longing for and depiction of home at a distance,” she notes. She also has a sculpture by Chandler McLellan, her dear friend from Indiana, called Emese’s Dream, inspired by a Hungarian legend. “We grew up on the same street in northern Indiana and now his pieces are sold at Galerie 1831, here in Paris, just across from Librairie 7L which sells copies of my magazine, Dahm House.”
Dahm describes a similarity between the way she put together her nest and how she creates her collections. “I tend to gravitate towards finding and creating beautiful singular objects that have covert symbolism and then try to find or create space for them to live and breathe in their own right,” she explains. “With my space and with my collections, I try to balance between creating something unique and beautiful, something handcrafted, something symbolic or sentimental, and lastly, something subtle enough to make sure that none of these other parameters overwhelm you. It’s still important to breathe and feel nourished in the space.”
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