Designer Muriel Brandolini has modernist-tropical palette is a mix of Vietnam, Venezuela, and France – reflecting the cultures she grew up with while inspiring her multi-layered designs. Brandolini’s intuitive approach to the interior of a house – portraits of those who live in them and of their mental landscapes has made her one of the most sought-after decorators on the international scene.

Her work has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, The World of Interiors, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, and Elle Decor among others. Her book – “The World of Muriel Brandolini” was published by Rizzoli in October of 2011. From fabrics to furniture, home decor to clothing, her alluring designs are also both fun and playful at the same time. Her success can be attributed to her talent, drive, determination and a pure love of design.

“I started becoming an interior designer accidentally,” says Muriel Brandolini, whose clients include Pia and Christopher Getty, Princess and Prince Pavlos of Greece, Annette and Matt Lauer among a long list of other impressive names. But, to Brandolini, who was born to a Vietnamese father and a French/Venezuelan mother, and raised in 1960s Vietnam and then Martinique, it’s her own well-traveled life—rather than any formal training—that has influenced her aesthetic. “I took all I had registered in my life and put it to practice in this city,” Brandolini says of her career.

And as “speedy” and unromantic as life in the city proves to be at times, it’s clear that Manhattan has hardly jaded Brandolini’s colorful and exuberant approach to design.“Aesthetic doesn’t mean you need to spend loads of money,” Brandolini notes, pointing out that she has changed her town house several times over the years to reflect her ever-changing style. “It’s just that you need to appreciate what the surroundings of the world and life gives you.”

With that in mind, she offers up two morsels of wisdom, the first to young designers: “Be free in everything you do, and not have contrived ideas of how things should be.”And the second, for the interior designer in all of us: “It’s not about a budget, home and aesthetics. It’s about what pleases your eye—where your curiosity will bring you,” she says. “And nothing needs to have a price tag to be right.