Towards the end of our conversation, Sachin Gupta narrates an interesting episode—of reaching a nondescript art store in Paris, tucked away in one of the by lanes far from the city. Gupta “travelled miles” before reaching the store—considering not many people seemed to know about its whereabouts—but it was worth it. From this treasure trove, he carefully picked out rare antiques, artefacts and paintings and brought them home to India. The episode is indicative of Gupta’s own design stance for Beyond Designs, the 18-year-old luxury interior accessories and furniture brand he founded in 2000. Just like he did in Paris, Gupta believes in going that extra mile to create—and acquire—nothing but the best even now.

Spread over a 8,000sqft area, Beyond Designs is a celebration in style, luxury and understated opulence. The ‘theatrics’, along with the strong curatorial stance in the interiors designed by Gupta at this store, is unmistakable—Gothic-styled mirrors, European-inspired sofas with rich fabrics of suede, silks, linen and limited-edition patterns, Chevron-inspired bar tables in marble stone, Renaissance-inspired chairs, mirror-and-wood side tables in antique gold polish, art-deco-inspired crystal chandeliers, richly upholstered chaise lounges with button-tufting and accents—everything contributes to a curatorial syntax that is visually distinct and immediately appealing to the eye.

Beyond Designs has been Gupta’s launchpad as one of the leading interior designers and furniture experts in the country, serving an extraordinary list of celebrity clients—including Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan, Shweta Bachchan Nanda and Nikhil Nanda, Ritu and Rajan Nanda and Abha and Satish Modi among several others, including embassies, homes of expats, farmhouses and more. The brand’s expansion should be credited to Gupta’s wife Neha, who joined the business in 2003. It was her roadmap for the company that has helped the fruition of Beyond Designs’ walkthrough concept luxury store, Beyond Designs Home—the company’s recently launched accessories line—and their foray into hospitality with Café We, a Parisian-styled café specialising in fine dining, which the Guptas have started in partnership with Varun Gupta.

The Guptas began the brand’s luxury retail journey in 2009 through a 1,200sqft store in Delhi’s Defence Colony, moving towards 3,500sqft by-appointment-only store in Niti Bagh in 2010, before going back to Defence Colony briefly and later opening a bigger showroom and a factory in Sultanpur. This store on Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road in the capital is the brand’s biggest retail showroom so far. Designed by the duo, along with expertise on Café We by Varun Gupta, it took the couple six months to set it up so that consumers could have a truly immersive experience in terms of luxury living.

Launched in April 2018, the store’s walkthrough concept showcases a formal living room, dining room, bar lounge, bedroom and baths, coupled with an exclusive area dedicated to accessories, and Café We, the 52-seater cafe with a private dining area. The brand’s curatorial stance lies in how the duo has juxtaposed the rawness of the walls and bare ceiling with a modern-vintage look, complete with luxurious materials and textures, visually enticing products and furnishings in bold colours and visually-arresting patterns. “Our brand,” Gupta told us while taking us on a tour of the impressive store, “is classic, not modern minimalism. It is maximalist.”

No inch of the store—or you can easily call it a high-concept gallery too—is sterile or dull, given how seamlessly the classic and the modern, the Indian and the Western, merge together here. A large-scale pichwai painting, for instance, combines flawlessly with an ornate European-styled sofa and an antique Persian carpet in one of the many looks that we find in Beyond Homes. In another Gothic-themed dining room, we find Kalighat pats effortlessly completing the room’s overall look. Or, for that matter, a collection of Company School lithographs creates a visual statement set atop a contemporary-styled glass console with brass accents. “Our new store is an extension of our signature style. Our stores have always looked like this—a raw floor and raw ceiling, a bit of industrial-chic background, and the theme has always been very eclectic, formal, fusion and quite stylish,” elaborates Gupta. A perfect amalgam of old-world charm and contemporary finesse, Beyond Designs is where less is not more and more is not a bore. Scroll on to have a look at the interiors of the brand’s Delhi store.