Tristán Domecq (Vigo, 1982) came to interior design by a path rarely taken in the profession: that of practice. He grew up in a family where design was a familiar language —his mother and a great-uncle were decorators, and the family counts several architects among its members—, and as a child he would cycle around the building sites of his city to watch how buildings were constructed. That early curiosity found a first outlet in his mother’s home décor shop, before he left for Madrid, to study, at the age of eighteen.
He studied Business Administration and Management and spent three years at Inditex, a period he himself considers decisive: there he learned management, sales analysis and the logic of the production processes that his companies put into practice today. The turning point came in 2012, almost by chance, with the renovation of his own home: an 1890 house in central Madrid, practically intact, which he stripped out completely while keeping what was worth saving —the doors, part of the floors— to adapt it to the layout of our time. He took on both the design and the building work himself and learned the craft by doing it. That house brought his first clients, and within three months he was already building a team.
The studio grew from his own home to occupy successive premises in Embajadores, Huertas and Ruiz de Alarcón, and with it a model took shape that sets Domecq apart in the Spanish interior design landscape: design and execution within a single company. Alongside the studio, which designs each space, an in-house construction company –Somos Arista– carries out the works, allowing him to control the result from start to finish and to offer the client a single point of contact.
Domecq defines his language as “sober and timeless”: neutral bases, noble materials —wood, stone, marble, iron, linen—, light that is always warm and a deliberate mix of periods in which the antique or vintage piece, often rescued from the Rastro flea market or brought from abroad, enters into dialogue with contemporary furniture and with art. He works hand in hand with marble workers, blacksmiths, carpenters and stonemasons, convinced that good design depends on a craft capable of executing it, and understands the home as something that is only complete once inhabited: “a house is finished when it is lived in”, he maintains.
That holistic vision —in which, in his words, the business outlook and the creative one carry equal weight— took physical form in 2021 with the opening of Tristán Domecq Casa, in Madrid’s Salamanca district, at the heart of the traditional circuit of textile showrooms and interior design shops. Its more than 380 square metres bring together a shop, an interior design studio, architecture and construction, a warehouse and an events space. Alongside antiques, objects and textiles, it sells furniture and lighting pieces designed by the studio and manufactured in Madrid, many of them bespoke. Preceded by an online shop, the concept store closes a circle that accompanies the client from the building works through to the choice of furniture and decorative objects.
His own home, a 1940s house in the north of Madrid that he restored with respect for its original architecture, serves as a laboratory: there he tests lime renders, natural pigments and new combinations before bringing them to his clients’ projects. Amid the garden, the vegetable patch and an art collection he constantly renews, Domecq cultivates the idea that forms the backbone of all his work: luxury lies in a home that reflects the person who lives in it.