Private Lives TENNANT & TENNANT

Growing up surrounded by beauty—between a and farm Christmases in Scotland and Christmases with their grandparents (the previous Duke of Devonshire and his wife, "Debo") at the 297-room family seat, Chatsworth— sisters Isabel and Stella Tennant have turned to gilding the objects around them. In 2012, supermodel Stella happened to notice some sample panels with gilded lines on weathered mahogany propped up in her sister's kitchen and wanted to make them into a lamp. "Before I knew it, she'd had oak bases made by a local carpenter," recalls Isabel, who studied decorative arts before becoming a gilder. The lamps took shape, as did the sisterly collaboration, Tennant & Tennant, based in their Scottish studio. In September 2014, Isabel and Stella exhibited their first collection, "Gilded Pleasures," during the London Design Festival. Like a treasure trove, the studio rooms glowed with gilt items—from a golden twig that acts as a door lintel to a marble console table with a bronze base, which was bought by their uncle, the current Duke of Devonshire, and sits at Chatsworth. And, of course, the oak-based "Kimono" lamps that started their Midas-like collection, (tennantand tennant.com)

ALICE B-B