From Tehran to Monaco, the destiny of Dr Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar, a virtuoso of luxury in space.

Interior architect, event designer and now creator of fine jewellery, the founder of Ali Bakhtiar Designs draws his imagination from nature to transcend his clients’ dreams. Here’s a portrait of this artistic genius, who transforms every project he undertakes into gold.

Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar has a charming smile, a fine and elegant touch and is one of the great ones. The prerogative of the powerful.

Born into an aristocratic Iranian family, he has retained its codes. Those of a lavish but refined culture. After an exodus to France, the country of lights and good taste, he passed through the reference institutions in the field of luxury, where the great designers of tomorrow are trained.

Yet he admits to having kept only the basics. He has thought out, nurtured and imposed his style.

Twenty years ago, when he started out in the complicated events industry, he took a daring gamble: to create ambiences where the décor was at one with the moment, by adding elements reserved for interior design.

He doesn’t just organise and optimise space ; he designs, plays with colours and materials. He transgresses, innovates, convinces. With his ecru lounge furniture, rock crystal tables, alcantara carpets and Baccarat chandeliers, Ali Behnma-Bakhtiar could transform the Palais des Glaces, a rough-hewn studio in Soho or the petit salon in the Château de Chambord. His only limit was his clients’ budget. And as his reputation grew, that budget expanded considerably, until it became nothing more than an illusion.

Today, Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar is an accomplished man – and a recognised authority – whose portfolio of clients includes the most chic and privileged of the world’s elite and stars.

Whether it’s a wedding for two thousand people in India, a bridal shower for five hundred of Qatar’s richest guests, or the birthdays of world-famous film stars, he moves from one celebration to another, from the sublimation of an intimate moment to the highlight of the most decadent show-off.

But as the years go by, the ‘grand chamberlain of the jet set’, as he is often called, grows weary, and eager for new experiences, tries new things.

He is a man who needs to be kept busy, stimulated and challenged.

So he turned his hand to architecture, building projects that were as pharaonic as they were surprising. From Saint-Jean-Cap Ferrat to London, via Monaco, Dubai and Mykonos, Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar works day and night, non-stop, and always where he is least expected.

A two-hundred-room palace, the wine estate of an industrial baron or the second home of a well-known oligarch. Nothing is too big, nothing too beautiful.

Think of an infinity pool overhanging the waters of the Côte d’Azur by more than 20 metres ? A mere trifle.

Using Carrara marble, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan or jade from Malaysia, he creates, transforms and sublimates.

A precursor of lasered marble, organised around brass strips gilded with gold leaf, he made it his trademark. He quickly became a benchmark for sophisticated luxury.

Ali Benham-Bakhtiar then set about pushing the game towards responsible paradigms. He drew inspiration from Nordic trends and used materials that Scandinavian designers used in their scenography. He succeeded in making products considered to be merely eco-responsible noble, by marrying them with more Byzantine, Roman or Oriental atmospheres. Marriage, always. The union, again.

He extends his fever to yachts, sailboats and other private jets.

Unstoppable, he even went so far as to dress the interior of a cargo plane to give it a Palazzo Armani version of Air Force One style. But designing incongruous spaces was no longer enough for him. This iconoclast of good taste and refinement, who has made nature his mantra and luxury his voluptuousness, is getting tired.

He needed new blood. He embraced an additional talent, a new string to his renaissance bow. He set out to design a line of fine jewellery, combining felinity with exceptional stones.

The sleek curves of the pure pieces sit alongside diamonds, rubies from Madagascar, emeralds from Brazil and sapphires from Sri Lanka. The designer chooses his own stones and knows the precise weight and size of each one that adorns his jewels.