CREATING A CHALET HOME FOR LIFE
I’m an expert in designing chalets designed to be passed down the generations in the Alps – and this is how you create an authentic and timeless mountain home.
Claudia Dorsch, chalet designer and founder of Claudia Dorsch Interiors
Ask me what comes to mind when I think of a chalet, and I would say a space that invites you to slow down, with everything designed around ritual and warmth. It’s somewhere that inspires conversation and meaningful connection. A cosy spot retreat that rewards you for staying that little bit longer and not running back to the city the moment you’re called. It’s that indoor sanctuary where you can feel the beauty of the great outdoors. The local wood grain under your fingertips. The reassuring warmth of fire and the flattering flicker of candlelight. It’s the views that are framed in every single room and open up before you, full of the possibility of a brand-new day ahead, whether out on the slopes or simply hunkering down at home.
Why, then, has ‘chaletcore’ – part of a trending aesthetic that attempts to capture a particular interior style, location and mood – got it so wrong? Because chaletcore is simply a collection of stylised alpine clichés. Rustic lodges of wood and stone. Textural sheepskins draped over buttery leather armchairs. And vintage skis and heirloom antlers mounted on walls.
Indeed, chaletcore is a romanticised ideal of what the chalet actually is, rather than something that’s rooted in authenticity. A reductive pastiche, if you will. In my experience, it’s more about a specific way of living only really understood by the families who return to these mountain homes year after year – and the designers who help create them.
That first cup of coffee on the decking where the surrounding landscape is the very best form of meditation. A long sauna after coming in from an even longer day on the slopes. Apres-ski from the comfort of your own home. Gathering around an open fire with friends and family. These are the moments of alpine life that really define what a chalet is and what the soulful design of one needs to foster.
Crucially, a chalet isn’t just about winter, either. The best are as beautiful in the summer as they are in the snow and the ones that ignore such a transitional quality have, perhaps, been inspired by how they look rather than how they feel.
It starts well before the decorating. Sound materials chosen for their ability to age gracefully at altitude, keeping their cool in the summer rays and providing natural warmth in the winter light. A hearth that’s the centrepiece of a family Christmas but equally happy as a backdrop in midsummer. Flooring that can withstand snow and grit as much as it can dust and pollen. The decking, somewhere to hot tub and shelter from the wind one season but find shade and lunch al fresco the next. And the outdoor furniture? Expertly crafted from specialist fabrics so it’s just as at home buried under snow as it is bleached by sun. Everything else may change around these key pieces, but they remain a constant in the chalet and should look should as good as new every time it’s opened up for the next visit. That’s real comfort.
Choosing authenticity isn’t only about rejecting pastiche, either. It’s about timelessness. The chalet should be allowed to honour its past while embracing its future. A bridge between traditional and modern, if you will. Somewhere that evolves with the original family and each generation thereafter. Not a seasonal retreat or dust-collector, but a living, breathing thing, just like the people converging there. From Switzerland to France, the chalets I’ve collaborated on with my clients follow such a philosophy, whether it’s updating traditional alpine design without betraying it in one or adapting a contemporary aesthetic to the different requirements of mountain living for another. These are chalets that feel like homes, first and foremost, rather than like someone else’s idea of what a mountain retreat ought to be. It’s about familiar references handled in unfamiliar ways, traditional craftsmanship combined with contemporary engineering, and natural materials expressed through new techniques.
This year, claudia’s chalet design comes to Decorex
Claudia is putting her 20+ years experience of designing to use as the lead designer of the 2026 Decorex VIP Lounge. This year’s lounge will be reimagined as a chalet, nestled in the heart of Kensington Olympia. The show is on from the 11th-14th October 2026.