The 85-year-old matriarch of prestige beauty brand Sisley Paris is musing about a missed opportunity in Australia. Not a business opportunity – that box has been ticked – but the chance to indulge her artistic side.

“I would like to have decorated a house in Australia,” says Polish-born countess Isabelle d’Ornano, speaking by phone from her office at Sisley’s headquarters in an art deco building near the Champs-Élysées. “Somewhere by the seaside, surrounded by glorious nature, where you can step outside from any room.”