Ineffable and vibrant, with that characteristic and casual copper lock on her blonde hair, the petite and youthful figure of Roxana Punta Alvarez, moves in continuous movement with that vital energy and daring that are his trademark. Just a few days ago, decked out in a dress designed especially for her by Min Agostini and with the immensity of her friend Mercedes Sosa’s voice singing that hymn called “Thanks to Life”, she went down the stairs of her house in celebration mode. for his eight decades of a life as intense as it is passionate, full of colors, multiplied effects and projects as diverse as prolific. ”There are three things in this life that I love very much: my husband, music and my profession. The most important thing in life is love and friends,” said the birthday girl. A long road traveled, not only as an interior designer, with an extensive career, but also as a set designer, trained at the Teatro Colón, art curator and specialist in collecting courses and trips to the most remote places on the planet.
“All those small studios, fashion, cinema, music, set design, the winks towards different disciplines at a given moment come together and are strengthened, everything helps you at the moment of creation”, he dictates with that desire to continue learning. Without fear of facing titanic works or using the entire color palette, he assures that the key to his continuous energy and his recognized success lies in facing everything he does with his heart: “Design without putting something of oneself, without putting the heart is as impersonal as an empty white wall”, he says.
News: Roxana… an exotic name for the time
Roxana Punta Alvarez: And for a Mendoza, I don’t even tell you! I was born on July 21 with a hellish and historic snowfall. So much so that they almost named me María de las Nieves. But my father always wanted to name me Roxana after Cyrano de Bergerac because she loved Rostand and spoke French very well, so despite the weather doubts she followed his wishes. My father’s family was one of the first in Mendoza. From 1700. We had a house in Mendoza Capital, another in San Rafael and the countryside. I am the youngest of three brothers. My father was a notary public and worked in the fields for my mother’s family, so they left me a boarder in a nun’s school in San Rafael and later in another in Mendoza.
News: How did he get along with the boarding?
Punta Alvarez: It was terrible. The first nuns were Discalced Carmelites and they didn’t even talk to you. But when I finished high school, Ana, my mother told me that she had to go to Buenos Aires to study. My father died when I was 10 years old and she had a head that was second to none. But I didn’t want to leave because I didn’t want to leave my friends. But I wanted to do a Bachelor of Art and at the University of Cuyo there was none.
News: Why art?
Punta Alvarez: All my life I liked art. I didn’t paint or anything, but I read a lot and I liked it. My house was a cultured and very aesthetic house. My mom was famous for how she dressed and for her taste in the house. My father was also very elegant, and very educated. At home, classical music was always heard, read, and painting was seen. Since I was a girl, I was fascinated by decoration without knowing what it was. I always remember that I was four years old, and I could not allow that there were no flowers on the table. But the first experience in the Big City was not the best. He returned to Mendoza, but not for long. “I realized that it was too flat for me and I returned to Buenos Aires forever. I entered the University and worked at the FIAT Foundation doing international economic studies and statistics. How far from art! At 22 I was offered a position at the Brussels Embassy. I left the race and stayed four years in Europe”.
News: How did you get into decorating?
Punta Alvarez: At 29, back in the country, I marry my first husband and he tells me he doesn’t want me to work. I put my house, a field and a country house: everyone likes it. So I took courses, I went to Parson’s School of Design, I trained.
News: Was the decoration somewhat lesser compared to art?
Punta Alvarez: No, because I think the artist’s eye is on both and that both can be merged into a wonderful combo. I I always maintained that the important thing is not to decorate, but to create a concept
News: What does it mean?
Punta Alvarez: Just think that my first client hired me to carpet her! It wasn’t what I thought. But then I made a decoration that came out in a magazine and they called me to invite me to FOA. I was just starting. I didn’t want to decorate just because, but to have a concept. In the decoration the space has to have something, if not it is only to accommodate furniture. The first thing I did at Casa FOA was to introduce art through the use of concepts that go beyond the ephemeral of fashion. It occurred to me to pay homage to Freud and I recreated his atmosphere. My first time at FOA and I was the one that got the most press. There you see that in the decoration not only art is united, but history, scenery, etc., and for this reason it is not a minor art.
News: A dream come true?
Punta Alvarez: Build an apartment in Manhattan for a very dear friend. It was a great challenge because two departments had to be brought together and in New York doing a play is very difficult, but it turned out spectacular.
News: Another dream was to bring Kenzo to Argentina.
Punta Alvarez: All my life their clothes and their colors fascinated me. Lily Gaubin, a decorator who represented major French genres, tells me that Kenzo had released a line for the home. The genres arrived and I just had to do the D&D House and there I make a room for a single man, in an oriental style. Lily shows the photos to Kenzo’s people, who when she sees them, puts them in his office. They ask me for permission to make the international catalog with one of them. One day chatting with Lily, we commented that there was no Maison de Kenzo and we said: “What if we do it?” Within a month we were in Paris, and shortly after we opened the first Maison de Kenzo in the world, in Buenos Aires.
News: What determines how you are going to decorate a place?
Punta Alvarez: The space, the light, it is as if I were seeing a set design. Something incredible happens to me when I walk into a place: I take a tour, talk for a few minutes and profile the customer, and I already know what I’m going to do. It’s like a clairvoyance thing that I have. Sometimes I change something to that screenshot that is because of the client’s personality. For me, the trigger for a job is always the client, which is why one job will never be the same as another. There are interior designers who have a specific style. I don’t. I don’t make one house the same as the other, because each one is the reflection of the soul of the person who inhabits it. I always tell clients that I don’t do fashion but what I feel about them, what they project onto me. I see a tendency here in Argentina to make all houses more or less the same. You choose to put what everyone uses, not what you want.
News: What object would you never use in a decoration?
Punta Álvarez: There are no ugly objects if you know how to put them. There are things that I may not like but if the owner loves it, you look for it. I like all the colors. I don’t like only the medium off orange, but the others go well with any decoration. I am very much of the “more is more”. But in my house and for me, because I am like that. Since I am a Cancerian, I am tremendously emotional and my house is full of memories.
News: You are known for anticipating trends. Is it always good to be ahead?
Punta Álvarez: Sometimes yes, sometimes they treat you crazy, and when everyone has it they don’t even remember that you were the first.
News: Give me some advice for someone who wants to decorate their house.
Punta Alvarez: First of all lighting, because it changes everything. See where the light goes. And then the skin of the walls. It is always good to update the old with contemporary design because otherwise one lives in the past.
News: You go to the Milan Fair, to New York, what’s next in interior design?
Punta Álvarez: Everything that has to do with sustainability. Products made with natural fibers, organic and natural materials: wood, stones, fibers, everything that comes from the Earth. And a lot of crafts with design. The new luxury is handmade.
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