If you need a boost, I suggest watching Countess Isabelle d’Ornano go about her day on Instagram. It’s aspirational, not in the current manner of billionaires feeding caviar to their dogs, but as a demonstration of style and optimism. D’Ornano wakes to coffee in bed with a stack of newspapers—“It’s a way of peace for 20 minutes”—visits the office, does gymnastics, swims several times a week at the Bulgari Hotel in Paris, blow-dries her hair, zips through her skincare-and-makeup routine, and gathers with her family and friends for meals. Maybe that sounds unremarkable. Trust me, it’s like sitting down to a bowl of whipped cream. D’Ornano is 89 and the co-founder, with her late husband Count Hubert, of Sisley, the luxurious French skincare line built on the power of natural, active ingredients long before that was fashionable.
I first met d’Ornano in the early 1990s at her apartment on the Quai d’Orsay, a double-height-ceiling fantasy of color and texture. There are carpets on carpets, wallpaper and fabrics, zebra-print furniture, and art everywhere. The needlepoint pillows tucked into the deep armchairs are her work, which she often designs with inspirational messages: “Be joyful, keep the faith, do little things.” When we meet again in September in her Paris office, also filled with needlepoint and zebra print, she’s wearing a beige-and-burgundy jacket and pants, a shirt embroidered with flowers, and a ceramic brooch of three pink radishes, adding zebra-print reading glasses when needed. “I always like having fun with clothes,” she tells me. She’s been on the International Best-Dressed List so many times, she says, “I think they got fed up with me and put me in the Hall of Fame.”