The
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AUSTRALIAN KITCHEN AND BATHROOM SPECIAL STYLE INSPIRATION FROM BONDI TO BYRON BAY
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Contents
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Milliner and artist Maryam Keyhani with her daughter Dali.
Upfront
shares her keen insights on designing for a higher purpose
Discover fine dining of a different kind with the elevated fare served up by the guests of honour, Bulgari’s fine jewellery
70 ICONIC STYLE: ANDRÉE PUTMAN
24 CONSCIOUS STATE OF BEING A shift in attitudes has amplified our awareness of social issues, community and the environment, and is ultimately bringing us back down to earth
VLife
As well as reviving lost classics of the ’20s and ’30s via Ecart International, the visionary tastemaker designed furniture and interiors
VLoves
56 PROFILE: YASMINE GHONIEM
16 CONTRIBUTORS 20 ONLINE NOW vogueliving.com.au 22 EDITOR’S LETTER
P HOTO G RAP H E R: JAC LY N LO C KE
42 TABLE MANNERS
49 HOUSE OF FUN Berlin-based milliner and artist Maryam Keyhani brings her radiant joy and vibrant creative vision to everything she touches
Curved, voluptuous or seemingly straightedge, these vivacious seats reveal a softer side showcasing tones across the spectrum
This award-winning designer uses memories of her nomadic upbringing between Australia and Kuwait as a starting point for her wildly unique interiors, where feeling and atmosphere are paramount
38 THE VL EDIT
62 TACTILE INTEGRITY
A curated hit list of new feature pieces and accessories that have caught our eye
With the completion of her forever home in Los Angeles, Jodie Fried of Armadillo
29 MUSICAL CHAIRS
72 ON THE LOGO Phosphorescent handbags and chairs collaged in archival imagery are just some of the limited-edition works resulting from a unique collaboration between Roman luxury fashion house Fendi and New York-based artist Sarah Coleman 75 QUIET POWER Sydney-based artist and former fashion designer Vicki Lee instils her trademark sense of fluidity, motion and fragility into a collection of works inspired by her late mother Mar/Apr 2021
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In the breakfast nook of a Paris home designed by architect Marine Bonnefoy.
P HOTO G RAP H E R: FRA NÇO I S CO Q UE R E L
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Pure Sofa & Dunes Side Tables by Tribu Exclusive to
Luxurious furniture from leading designer brands for indoors and out. Luxurious, but always discreet.
Melbourne | Sydney | Brisbane | Perth www.coshliving.com.au
Contents
145
A bathroom designed by Tamsin Johnson.
145 FRESH INSIGHT
A curated hit list of refined accessories for those who travel in style, from top to toe
Kitchens and bathrooms are spaces that offer an opportunity to flex your creative muscle. Here, the movers and shakers of the design world share their favourite style essentials and expert knowledge
Services
VList
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168 TRAVEL + LUXURY: THE VL EDIT
The main bedroom of the Stockholm home belonging to Sofia Wallenstam, cofounder of fashion label House of Dagmar. Photographer: Magnus Mårding. Story, page 78. Subscribe to Vogue Living: page 142. Be part of the conversation: #VogueLiving #loveVL
142 SUBSCRIBE TO VL 171 SOURCES
162 SOUTHERN COMFORT
VLast look
Tasmania’s widescreen wilderness, thriving food scene and cultural significance provide immersive sensory nourishment and a chance to untether from mainland concerns
The wonder of a bud flourishing is expressed in the creation of this multifaceted seat where a sinuous structure delights on first sight
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On the cover
176 LOVE BLOSSOMS
The
visionary
women
leading the world of design
AUSTRALIAN KITCHEN AND BATHROOM SPECIAL STYLE INSPIRATION FROM BONDI TO BYRON BAY
P HOTO G RAP H E R: AN SON SM ART
Kitchens & Bathrooms
#TheCassinaPerspective Sengu Sofa and Sengu low tables designed by Patricia Urquiola Doron Hotel small armchairs designed by Charlotte Perriand cassina.com
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Rebecca Caratti EDITOR editor@vogueliving.com.au CREATIVE DIRECTOR Natasha Allen DEPUTY EDITOR Verity Magdalino STYLE EDITOR Joseph Gardner ACTING CHIEF COPY EDITOR Virginia Jen MELBOURNE EDITOR & FEATURES WRITER Annemarie Kiely DIGITAL DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL STRATEGY AND E-COMMERCE Francesca Wallace HEAD OF DIGITAL CONTENT AND GROWTH Mahalia Chang HEAD OF BRAND Yeong Sassall CONTRIBUTORS CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Fiona McCarthy (London), Freya Herring, Jason Mowen IMAGES Sharyn Cairns, François Coquerel, Felix Forest, Sam Frost, Adam Gibson, Romain Laprade, Jaclyn Locke, Magnus Mårding, Christoffer Regild, Daria Kobayashi Ritch, Jeremy Simons, Anson Smart, Valentina Sommariva, Monica Spezia, James Tolich, Dave Wheeler WORDS Victoria Baker, Jane Keltner de Valle, Jeni Porter STYLING Sarah de Beaumont, Philippa Moroney, Maja Hahne Regild, Gena Sigala DIGITAL ASSETS & RIGHTS MANAGER Trudy Biernat COMMERCIAL FINANCE MANAGER Roshni Walder GENERAL MANAGER — THE AUSTRALIAN & PRESTIGE TITLES Nicole Waudby (02) 8045 4661. GROUP COMMERCIAL INTEGRATION DIRECTOR — THE AUSTRALIAN & PRESTIGE TITLES Amanda Spackman 0438 266 373. HEAD OF PRODUCT THE AUSTRALIAN & PRESTIGE TITLES Hannah David Wright 0411 753 665. COMMERCIAL CREATIVE DIRECTOR THE AUSTRALIAN & PRESTIGE TITLES Adelina Cessario 0416 244 688. GROUP DIGITAL BRAND MANAGER Adriana Hooper 0421 207 999. GROUP PRODUCT MANAGER Catherine Patrick 0414 334 988. COMMERCIAL MANAGER Garineh Torossian 0410 742 745. PRESTIGE SALES MANAGERS Cheyne Hall (02) 8045 4667, Kate Corbett (02) 8045 4737, Jennifer Chan 0433 610 198. SENIOR COMMERCIAL INTEGRATION & STRATEGY MANAGER Elise De Santo 0422 080 755. NSW COMMERCIAL INTEGRATION & STRATEGY MANAGERS Sophie Gallagher 0449 767 447, Izabela Gower 0478 661 794, Alex Wilson 0404 061 435. PROJECT MANAGER — PARTNERSHIPS Kate Dwyer (02) 9288 1009. CAMPAIGN IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER Matilda McMaster. CAMPAIGN IMPLEMENTATION EXECUTIVE Jordan Lozina. NSW CLIENT SERVICE EXECUTIVE Eunice Lam 0420 703 702. VICTORIA COMMERCIAL INTEGRATION MANAGER Nadine Denison 0402 743 884. VICTORIA COMMERCIAL INTEGRATION SPECIALIST Jo Constable 0410 558 673. VICTORIA CLIENT SERVICE EXECUTIVE Isabella Pirrie 0451 533 396. CLASSIFIEDS SALES MANAGER Tejal Chabhadia (02) 8832 1939. CLASSIFIEDS ACCOUNT MANAGERS George Cheriyan 1300 139 305, Skye Corsar (02) 8832 1946. CLASSIFIEDS CREATIVE DESIGNER Kylie McGrath ASIA Kim Kenchington, Mediaworks Asia (852) 2882 1106. ADVERTISING — CREATIVE HEAD OF CREATIVE Richard McAuliffe HEAD OF CREATIVE OPERATIONS Eva Chown HEAD OF ART Karen Ng HEAD OF CONTENT Brooke Lewis SENIOR ART DIRECTORS Elen Le Glanic, Rachel Pink, Nicole Vonwiller SENIOR CONTENT WRITERS Rosie Double, Tiffany Pilcher, Colin Sevitt CREATIVE PRODUCERS Sarah Mury, Candice Shields, Kristie Walden PRODUCTION MANAGER Michelle O'Brien ADVERTISING PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Robynne Beavan IMAGING AND RETOUCHING SERVICES, PRESTIGE Michael Sykes INTERACTIVE EDITION PRODUCTION MANAGER Stuart McDowell GENERAL MANAGER, RETAIL SALES & CIRCULATION Brett Willis NATIONAL CIRCULATION MANAGER Danielle Stevenson SUBSCRIPTIONS ACQUISITION MANAGER Grant Durie SUBSCRIPTIONS RETENTION MANAGER Crystal Ewins GENERAL MANAGER, DIGITAL Stuart Fagg HEAD OF PRODUCT DESIGN Alex Fawdray DIGITAL DESIGNER Yeara Chaham DIGITAL PRODUCT MANAGER Benjamin Langford BRAND EXPERIENCES & EVENTS GENERAL MANAGER, BRAND EXPERIENCES & EVENTS Diana Kay CAMPAIGN MARKETING MANAGER Rachel Christian MARKETING MANAGER — PARTNERSHIPS & EVENTS Natalie Headland SENIOR EVENTS MANAGER Dorothy Reynolds EVENTS MANAGER Genevieve McCaskill CAMPAIGN MARKETING COORDINATOR Sophie Mac Smith PRESTIGE MARKETING GENERAL MANAGER, MARKETING Alice Bradbury HEAD OF MARKETING Jarrah Petzold MARKETING MANAGER, PRESTIGE TITLES Annie Kelly MARKETING EXECUTIVE, PRESTIGE TITLES Jessica Bunney HEAD OF PLANNING, PERFORMANCE & ENGAGEMENT Alan Sims MARKETING EXECUTIVE, ENGAGEMENT Meghan Knox PUBLISHER, NEWS PRESTIGE NETWORK Nicholas Gray EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, CONDÉ NAST TITLES Edwina McCann MANAGING EDITOR, CONDÉ NAST TITLES Louise Bryant DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS Sharyn Whitten HEAD OF FINANCE Jacob Shadwick CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, DATA AND DIGITAL Julian Delany VOGUE LIVING is published by NewsLifeMedia Pty Ltd, ACN 088 923 906. NewsLifeMedia Pty Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Limited (ACN 007 871 178). Copyright 2021 by NewsLifeMedia Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. ISSN 0042-8035. 2 Holt Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010. Tel: (02) 9288 3000. Email: mail@vogueliving.com.au. Website: vogueliving.com.au. Postal address: Vogue Living, NewsLifeMedia, Level 1, Locked Bag 5030, Alexandria, NSW 2015. Melbourne: Level 9, 40 City Road Southbank. Tel (03) 9292 3208. Brisbane: 41 Campbell Street, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Tel: (07) 3666 6910. Fax: (07) 3666 6911.
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Victoria Baker
FASHI ON STYL IST In preparation for a shoot in her role as senior fashion editor and market director at Vogue Australia, Philippa Moroney will have every look planned and fitted beforehand so she knows exactly how everything will play out. Not so for the story she collaborated with photographer James Tolich and Vogue Living’s style editor Joseph Gardner (page 29). “James, Joseph and I all worked together on the looks and how they would work back with the furniture pieces on the day,” she explains. “It was a true melting pot of spontaneous creativity, I loved it.” The other big difference? The amount of clothes and accessories packed. “I took way more looks as options than I ever would’ve on a Vogue shoot, and that’s saying something!” Moroney has styled covers and fashion and celebrity shoots for more than a decade and though her creative process is dependent on the original brief, “whichever way I work, I need to be extremely organised and methodical whilst being creative and malleable.” @pipmoroney
Philippa Moroney
WR I TE R A N D E D ITO R With a decade of experience in the interiors realm, via online retailer Temple & Webster as well as magazine publishing, writer and Vogue Codes editor Victoria Baker was perfectly placed to compile our kitchen and bathrooms special (page 145). Delving into the latest looks and speaking to those realising streamlined zones and restorative sanctuaries drew a variety of insights. “Richard Christiansen described his dream bathroom as including ‘warm, rose-coloured lighting and a shelf for a vodka soda’,” she says. “That was instantly evocative — and could equally be applied to every room of the house.” Conscious design that really connects still holds sway though. “All the designers I spoke to see their roles as designing for the long term, transcending trends and creating spaces that will continue to function beautifully and be aesthetically appealing for as long as their clients live in the home, and even beyond that,” says Baker. “That in itself is a type of sustainable design.” @victoriajanebaker
Magnus Mårding PH OTO GR A P HER Stockholm-based photographer Magnus Mårding spends a lot of time planning his work around making the most of the natural light available, but “when it comes to shooting, it’s executed really fast and I trust my intuition,” he says. For Vogue Living Mårding — who divides his time between commercial and editorial work for the likes of WSJ Magazine, Architectural Digest and Aman Resorts — captured the soft Nordic light infusing the Stockholm residence of fashion designer Sofia Wallenstam (page 78). “The shoot was very intense,” he says. “I worked closely with the interior designer Louise Liljencrantz. I love her work because it’s clean, minimalistic but still warm and feminine. It was a challenge to bring out her amazing feeling for details.” @magnusmarding
François Coquerel P H OTO G RAP H ER Working with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Architectural Digest, WSJ Magazine and Aesop, in between personal projects, has instilled a refined sensibility into the visuals François Coquerel produces behind the lens. After 14 years shooting all manner of still-life and interior images — including a Paris home designed by architect Marine Bonnefoy for this issue (page 114) — the Paris-based photographer has found that there is a certain satisfaction producing a curated few instead of giving into excess. “My ideal process, which doesn’t occur that much, is to be alone, sit and start playing with the things around me,” he says. “The less photographs I shoot, the happier I feel.” For Coquerel, who lives just outside of Paris in Versailles, the hardest part of this shoot, was “not stealing the chairs to bring back home!” His next project speaks true to this desire for simplicity: a book documenting teenagers spending weekends in the forest, slated to be out in September. @francoiscoquerel 16
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E DI T E D BY V I RG IN I A JE N AN D VE R I TY MAGDAL I N O. P HOTO GRA PH E RS: H OL LY G I BSO N ( PHI L I P PA MOR O N EY ), N IGE L LO U G H (V ICTOR I A BA K ER ), EST EL LE HA N A NI A ( F RAN ÇOIS COQUE RE L)
Contributors
FURNITURE & HOMEWARES | INTERIOR DESIGN | PROPERTY STYLING | DESIGN SCHOOL WWW.COCOREPUBLIC.COM.AU
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Y O U RATE D U S Nº 1
Editor’s letter
A view of milliner and artist Maryam Keyhani’s studio from the dining room in her Berlin home (page 49); paintings by Maryam Keyhani in collaboration with her father, artist Mostafa Keyhani.
EDITOR 22
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PHOTO G RA PH ER S: MI C HA E L NAUM O FF ( PO RTRA IT ), JAC LY N LO C K E (D I N IN G RO O M ). HA I R & M AK E - U P: C L AI RE T HOM S ON
W
hen I became editor of Vogue Living, I made it clear that celebrating and recognising women in design was an important objective for the magazine. I wanted to showcase female creatives who had talent, passion and perseverance, as well as a different perspective in a traditionally male-dominated field. The #MeToo movement was in full swing when my first women’s issue went on sale and, three years on, I’m still as passionate as ever to shine a light on and provide a stage for the amazing women who continue to break new ground in the design realm. Some of my favourite Australian design leaders feature in this issue including the trailblazing Jodie Fried of ethically conscious company Armadillo (page 62) and the distinctive Yasmine Ghoniem of YSG Studio (page 56). In our profiles on these formidable women, we reveal their unsurprisingly amazing homes. Jodie’s home is the culmination of a carefully considered approach while Yasmine’s bold Bondi home exhibits her unique aesthetic and vibrant personality. I had the pleasure of spending time with Yasmine late last year and fell in love with her approach to design and sense of humour. I was also in awe of her strength and resilience. It’s meeting women like Yasmine that make my job so satisfying and it’s such a privilege to be able to share their boundary-pushing work. We also present a collection of seriously chic homes, each a considered take on contemporary femininity. From the restrained, soft neutral palette of a heritage home in Stockholm (page 78) to the eclectic, colourful furniture of a Milan apartment (page 132), there is something to suit everyone. And the pairing of interior designer Edwina Glenn with philanthropist and women’s rights advocate Jill Reichstein OAM highlights the power of collaboration with the resulting Melbourne sanctuary (page 124) a refined vision of calm. Our kitchen and bathroom special cannot be missed either (page 145), filled with insider expert advice from the best local and global designers on all the latest trends in colour, materials and products, as well as their own dream projects. Overwhelmingly though, smart layouts, incredible details and sustainable style remain timeless. Enjoy the issue.
VLview Thermally efficient and sustainable unfinished SIPS panels were used in Archier’s Casa Acton project in Hobart, Tasmania.
Conscious state of being A shift in attitudes has amplified our awareness of social issues, community and the environment, and is ultimately bringing us back down to earth. By Noelle Faulkner Photographed by Adam Gibson
A
lmost a year to the day this issue went on sale, the worst of the Black Summer bushfires were extinguished and Australia breathed a sigh of relief. That summer was unforgettable in many ways but one part that will forever stick in our minds was the outpouring of support. We didn’t know then what was to come — that a global pandemic would further strengthen our connection to home — but by the time Covid-19 arrived, Australia’s sense of social duty had already been altered for the better. In recent years, ‘conscious consumerism’ has become the buzzy phrase de jour. As the idea that every purchase we make has moral value, it’s helped inform us of our impact, choices and spend. The movement itself has twisted and turned as brands have vied for
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attention, particularly as the zeitgeist prompted us all to be activists in our lunch hour. The good side of the coin has seen the rise of social enterprise, personal activism and mass accountability. The bad? Greenwashing, corporate virtue signalling and dubious marketing speak. Regardless, consumers are digging deeper for integrity, and the pressure for brands, creatives, governments and everything in between to do the right thing is at fever pitch. But then something else happened along the way. Being unable to travel abroad, Australians began seeking wonder in their own backyard. And it seems as our global consciousness has expanded, so too has our yearning for connection. Suddenly, we’ve found ourselves asking, in all areas of our lives: “What can I do?” Conscious consumerism has morphed. It’s no longer just about moral worth, but also significance, longevity and community. ››
Your design statement...
... lies within.
The difference is Gaggenau. Grand architecture demands grand interior pieces. Refrigeration is one such design element and should speak to who you are. Every Gaggenau piece is distinctively designed, crafted from exceptional materials, offers professional performance, and has done so since 1683. Make a statement: www.gaggenau1683.com.au
VLview “There are fundamental design and construction ideas and passive design principles that are more inherently sustainable than the latest fad” ‹‹ “When you have something made locally, you shake the hand of the maker,” says Melbourne-based architect, furniture designer and craftsman Adam Markowitz. “It’s not just about this consumerist idea of ‘needing the look’ that we see on Instagram; it’s a relationship. You can see the maker’s hand in the work and the design. The value of that object is not the object alone.” Working primarily with timber, Markowitz’s craft is inherently sustainable — not just in a material sense but also in its footprint and community knock-on effect. “What people might not think about is that as a local maker, I’m also in their community,” he says. “I’m supporting the same businesses as them; I’m going to the same cafés, I use local timber merchants, a local engineering company for my lights and a local brass merchant. So when you buy something from someone like me, you’re also supporting this network of other small-scale businesses.” And what you get in return is accountability: “If anything goes wrong, I’m just down the road.” The challenge in cultivating any mindfulness practice — and that’s what this is — is avoiding the pitfalls of distraction: the notifications, the news, the spin, the shiny new thing in your periphery promising a cure-all. “There’s always a new technology and a new material,” says Chris Haddad, a director at Archier, a Melbourne design firm that works predominantly in the architectural space. “These innovations do push the envelope further but sometimes can be seen as a silver bullet.” Particularly when talking about the environmental impact of our homes, sustainability can be overthought. “There are fundamental design and construction ideas and passive design principles that are more inherently sustainable than the latest fad,” he says of the principals that have been used for decades. This includes orientation that takes advantage of natural resources, using materials like wood and concrete, building only what you need, and at the heart of it all, an efficient floor plan. “Look at the mid-century modern plans of the 1950s and ’60s. These houses had to fit families using a very small footprint, with many constrictions,” he says. “They are some of the best and most efficient floor plans in residential architecture today. Sadly, in the following decades, the McMansion came in, telling us ‘bigger is better’.” Haddad points out that the 26
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industry itself is excited by change. “There are a lot of architects and builders that want to do more sustainable builds and work on projects they’re proud of.” “We know fast fashion is wrong — it’s the same thing with furniture,” says Anne-Claire Petre, furniture designer and owner of Anaca Studio, who has noted a recent uptick in awareness of local brands, particularly those in the ethical design space. Unfortunately, a by-product of hyper-consumption has also been the rise in replica and mass brands ripping-off small designers like Petre. “It’s heartbreaking when it happens,” she says. “It’s difficult for consumers to know, so you can’t blame them. But then, some people just want something cheap; they don’t see the value of the designer or what goes into making something.” Petre says the culture of cheap, disposable thrills is slowly changing but for Australian design to thrive, consumers need to understand how their choices can support local industry. “We have a lot of work ahead to undo the over-consumerism that has been drummed into our heads for decades,” she says. “I think Vivienne Westwood sums it up perfectly: ‘Buy less, choose well, make it last’ . It really is the new standard for sustainability.” VL
Our rugs lie lightly on this earth.
A R M A D I LLO - C O.C O M
P HOTO G RAP H E R: JAM E S TOL I C H . ST Y LI ST: JO SE P H GAR D NE R. FA SHI O N STY L I ST: P HI L I PPA MO R ON E Y. TAL E N T: J ES S P W AT V I V I EN S MOD EL S
shop style
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Mar/Apr 2021
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Photographed by James Tolich Produced and styled by Joseph Gardner Fashion styled by Philippa Moroney
VLoves
VLoves
VLoves
VLoves
Handmade culinary architecture. Designed and created for you in France, since 1908. www.l a co r nue.co m. au
Available at
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The VL edit E XC HAN GE RAT E CO RR E CT AT TI M E O F P RI N T SU B JE CT TO CH AN GE
De Sede DS-707 armchair by Philippe Malouin, POA, from Domo; domo.com.au B ELO W Danyon vase, $395, from Coco Republic; cocorepublic.com.au
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Monument occasional ceramic table, from $3980, from King Living; kingliving.com.au
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E XC HAN GE RAT E CO RR E CT AT TI M E O F P RI N T SU B JE CT TO CH AN GE
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SYDNEY 02 9906 3686
BRISBANE 07 3252 8488 sales@cotswoldfurniture.com.au - www.cotswoldfurniture.com.au
MITTAGONG 02 4872 2585
Table manners Photographed by James Tolich Styled by Joseph Gardner
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VLoves
TA LE N T: D I JAN A MAD DI SO N
TH IS PAG E , F R O M LEF T Serpenti white gold necklace with pavé diamonds, $153,000, and Serpenti white gold earrings with pavé diamonds, $68,600, from Bulgari.
Mar/Apr 2021
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VLoves
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VLoves
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bulgari.com
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VLife
P HOTO G RAP H E R: JAC LY N LO C KE
art design people
Mar/Apr 2021
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House ART
Berlin-based milliner and artist Maryam Keyhani brings her radiant joy and playful creative vision to everything she touches.
By Freya Herring Photographed by Jaclyn Locke
milliner and artist Maryam Keyhani with her son Rumi in the studio in her Berlin apartment.
TH IS PAGE
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ne conversation with artist and milliner Maryam Keyhani and you’ll be prepped and empowered to take on anything. “I just bought, for the first time ever, jewellery for myself,” she says. “Fuck it! I deserve a diamond ring shaped like a dessert!” It elicits the same sort of emotions you’d imagine would ensue dancing with Beyoncé during Destiny Child’s ‘Bootylicious’ video. Suddenly you’re a new woman, whooping with gleeful abandon, taking on the world one fabulous hat at a goddamn time. Keyhani has lived and worked in her Berlin apartment intermittently for seven years, having found her home and workspace while renting a neighbouring unit. It’s a sprawling space of interlinked rooms, with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, numerous living-cum-family rooms and a gloriously paint-splattered, hat-adorned, light-drenched studio. A feeling of joy radiates from its walls. “It’s like a candy shop,” says Keyhani. “I love the fact that when kids come here on a play date, they think the whole place is a ‘child place’. It feels like every room is a toy room, which makes me so happy.” The apartment is big enough for her kids — Rumi, seven, and Dali, three (who live here with Keyhani and her husband, Ali) — to have their own space while she’s working, but every facet of the home reflects her art. There are little glass bird-like sculptures in one corner, and a giant tiered fabric wedding cake — white with a cherry on top — in another. Surreal dolls fill one of four vitrines. Playful paintings, some of which she created with her artist father Mostafa Keyhani — croissants, artichokes and even ruff-collared lobsters — line the walls. She has commissioned a set of interlocking cushions that rest on the floor and act like an especially fun family sofa: “The kids use it to pillow fight,” she says warmly. ››
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‹‹ The sofa is a beautiful object but as with everything in Keyhani’s world, it’s not to be taken too seriously. “I hope that when someone comes to my house they don’t leave saying ‘I wish I had…’,” she says. “I hope they go put up a clown in their kitchen! I want so badly for it not to feel ‘decorated’.” Keyhani grew up in war-torn Tehran, Iran, emigrating to Toronto when she was 13. She studied painting and sculpture before moving into jewellery design and then hat-making, which has proven to be a smash hit, with the likes of Janelle Monáe wearing her creations. Her hats and headpieces are Schiaparelli-esque in their surrealism: some puffed-up and cloud-like; others shaped like bicornes or with singular hands sticking out the top. One hat even pops open like a camping cup. Today, though, it’s all about her paintings, and contemplatively painting in her studio is how she intends on spending her time. Always joyful, and unapologetically fantastical, her pieces often depict female creatures in mesmerising couture. She isn’t represented by a gallery, preferring to sell directly via Instagram. “I sell them for €400 [$630] each,” she says. “I try to make paintings that are affordable. I paint onto boards so you can put them anywhere — you can put them in your kitchen when you’re cooking, put it beside your bed, put it in your fucking bathroom while you take a bath!” The bedlam of 2020, for Keyhani at least, saw a surge in sales — “I have never sold more paintings,” she says. “The world is so dark right now, everything is so heavy, difficult; so exhausted and down. The darker and heavier the world is, the happier and sillier, and more playful, my paintings become. We need this right now.” Her optimism should not be mistaken for naivety though; far from it, it springs from a place of profound pain. “Like so many people of my generation who went through war [in Iran], I don’t remember anything from my childhood,” she says. “As a child I created this fantasy world as a coping mechanism, but it then grew to be a real advantage. It serves me well — reality does nothing for me.” Having channelled her trauma into something positive, she speaks a visual language that benefits all of us in these pandemic-drenched days; and it’s a voice of jubilant, welcome distraction. Keyhani chooses fantasy. And by wearing her hats, enjoying her paintings, or simply choosing to be inspired by her approach, we choose that too. VL maryamkeyhani.com Maryam Keyhani in the dining room reaching into a virtine from Austria, filled with her handmade dolls and ceramic hats. A view into the dining room. Dali playing with a giant cake sculpture by Maryam Keyhani; painting by Maryam Keyhani in collaboration with her father, artist Mostafa Keyhani.
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“The darker and heavier the world is, the happier and sillier, and more playful, my paintings become. We need this right now”
PROFILE
Yasmine Ghoniem
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isit the website of YSG, the Sydney studio stamped with the initials of its principal Yasmine Saleh Ghoniem, and a lush oasis opens up in the desert of internet design. No spartan typeface attaching to image scrolls in a void of white, but a rock-and-roll assault on graphic convention and the flashing claim in bold caps declaring “The magnetism is in the mix.” It is spicy, trippy and flagrantly flips the bird to any prescripts on the use of pattern and proportion in both the production of its content and the constructed interiors it frames, and, it sucks the viewer right into its vow of summoning all senses. But if doubt nags that it’s all just a digital mirage, a visit to the Four Pillars Laboratory in Sydney’s Surry Hills will verify the designer’s ability to magic materials into a juniper-laced taste of the gin-maker’s craft. Or a drink at Redfern’s new microbrewery Atomic Beer Project will prove that pale ale can fizz into a fit-out with the same hip hoppy bite. Ghoniem is “totally” down with the oasis allusion to her work and its implication of relief in a desert of design repeat, but no matter how self-determining she says she tries to be, the fates conspire against her. “I mean starting up a new practice just before Covid lockdown,” she says of the random setback to her studio launch back in February 2020. “It’s like arriving in Kuwait the day the Gulf War starts.” Is that a simile or a real-life circumstance? Ghoniem proceeds to unfurl the story of her formative years sharing that her mother is a trueblue Aussie — “red-haired, green-eyed, freckled skin, so not like me” — and her father an Egyptian chemical engineer, whose expertise in oil rigs centred the family’s life in the Persian Gulf. “I am the second-youngest of four children, the only one born in Kuwait,” she says of the nation where expatriates count for the majority of the population. “It’s funny growing up in this transitory place that never issued me with a passport or acknowledged my existence. I am half-Australian, half-Arabic,
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but I have never felt at home in either place. I am the homeless product of a nomadic upbringing.” Her sense of unsettlement — the endowment of a perpetual family swing between the poles of Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Australia — amplified into anxiety with the disappearance of her father who, during a family stint in Sydney in 1991, returned to Kuwait in search of work. “He arrives on the day the Iraqi forces invade and occupy the state,” Ghoniem recalls. “All the airports and communication lines were down; he disappeared for a really long time. Mum thought he was dead, but seven months later he walks through the door and says we are all going back to Kuwait.” Explaining that he’d been putting out fires on bombed oil rigs, she adds that his skills were still required and compelled the family’s return to the Gulf for another 10 years. Ghoniem measures a decade in that part of the world as the full extent of any expat’s endurance, saying that she compensated for “bomb scares every month” and a vegetation-free desert — “where everything was just brown as hell” — by forming a cover band with her friend Sama. Called The Expat Story, it brought colour and lyricism to her teenage life where the desert denied it and forged friendships that endured to express in such “fun projects” as the penthouse Ghoniem is currently designing for Sama, now the founder of resortwear label Dear Nin. But more on that later as Ghoniem abridges her post-Kuwait life with a whiplash of world-hopping activity and aestheticism, starting with her win of a scholarship to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) in America’s Deep South. “I was just following my American boyfriend to the US,” she says in highlight of how serendipity pushed her towards design. “I graduated from there and worked in three different architectural practices, covering corporate and hospitality, but I was just a glorified CAD monkey and after six years in America, I avowed to toss in design.” ››
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friend plays the keys. We became this awesome all-girl band , with Ben, called The Conversations.” Ironically, interiors work became a way to pursue music, until one design practice boss took exception to her lyric-writing on his watch. Autonomy over her time became the determinant of setting up Amber Road, the design firm that Ghoniem cofounded in 2013 with her landscape architect sister, Katy Svalbe. “We did that for seven years and then went our separate ways,” she says with the exasperated add that no matter how hard she tries to leave design, it always drags her back. But humility prevents her from mouthing ‘talent’ as the reason she remains tethered to a drawing board and the demands of clients so enamoured with her ‘something other’. Hazarding a guess at what that ‘other’ might be, Ghoniem says she never looks to the work of others to help materialise her idiosyncratic schemes but sources memories of the many far-off places that have made her emote. “I try to evoke a feeling not
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in another view of the main bedroom, stool from Studio Henry Wilson; runner from Kulchi; Mr Tallmadge (2015) artwork by James King from Becker Minty; framed scarf by Kushana Bush from Chee Soon & Fitzgerald. In the guest bedroom, Indian quilt from Chee Soon & Fitzgerald; Tom Dixon Swirl tables from Living Edge; Roy lamp from VBO; photograph of Leonardo Dicaprio by Hugh Stewart; artwork by Mariusz Zdybalv from The Vault Sydney. Details, last pages. 60
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“When I'm in a space that makes me feel something, I try to deconstruct its potency” ‹‹ Volunteering as an aid worker in Africa, Ghoniem next embedded deep in Maasai land in Kenya, living in a manyata hut while assisting with the building of schools. Then, came “an amazing year-long trip through Sri Lanka, Spain, Vietnam — more volunteer work — Cambodia and Laos,” she says, adding that being a long-term itinerant in unstable territories soon made Sydney seem all the more appealing. So, she returned in 2008, beginning a band with her brother Ben. “My cousin plays the violin, my best mate plays the drums and another
a visual,” she explains with excited description of the Kuwait penthouse scheme that identifies in the office as ‘Mies and Marni’ — shorthand for Sama and her partner’s competing minimalism and maximalism. Ghoniem continues: “When I’m in a space that makes me feel something, I try to deconstruct its potency but always come to the conclusion that it’s not designed. It has literally grown, memory upon patron memory, and that’s what I truly love about interiors, when it reflects the wonders of a world you can’t control.” VL ysg.studio
VLife DESIGN
Tactile integrity With the completion of her forever home in Los Angeles, Jodie Fried, entrepreneur and cofounder of ethical rug company Armadillo, shares her keen insights on designing for higher purpose.
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T H E S E PAG ES , F R OM LE F T in the living room of Jodie Fried’s Venice home, looking onto the backyard, Ord sofa from Eco Outdoor; Sahara rug from Armadillo. The facade of the home. Details, last pages.
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esigning for good defines Jodie Fried’s life work. From helping a small community in India rebuild and produce an income via its traditional textile trade after a devastating earthquake in 2001, Fried has steadily established an internationally respected textile company with a focus on ethically produced rugs that are as soft and sumptuous as they are positive for the planet. Together with her cofounder, Sally Pottharst, Fried launched Armadillo in 2009. The past few years in particular has witnessed a series of milestones for the award-winning Adelaide-born entrepreneur, who was recognised by Time magazine as one of the world’s top 100 most influential “green designers”. Not only has Fried celebrated a decade in business, she has also completed the build of her family home in Venice, Los Angeles — a four-bedroom, open and airy retreat where she lives with her cinematographer husband Greig Fraser, and their children Felix, Leonardo and Poppy. Here, she details her thoughts on building an ethical company and making her dream home reality. ›› Mar/Apr 2021
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“Women are empathetic leaders, and people are wanting a different kind of leadership now”
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THIS PAG E , C LO C KWI S E FR O M TO P L EF T in the outdoor dining area, Bronte dining table and bench seats from Eco Outdoor; Selamat Designs Manhattan pendant light from Perigold. Homeowner Jodie Fried in the studio; All Wood stools and Bookmatch table from Hem, enquiries to District; Bramble rug from Armadillo. In the kitchen, Soft Edge 32 bar stools from Hay; Earth Light pendant lights by Anchor Ceramics.
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VLife ‹‹ I’m inspired by the female design pioneers — many of them from the mid-20th century. Women like Eileen Grey, Frida Kahlo, Ray Eames, Ruth Duckworth and, most importantly, Georgia O’Keeffe. I spent some time in New Mexico and that’s when I really started to understand her work. She was a painter, a ceramicist and the interiors of her homes, like Ghost Ranch, were quite impactful and in a way they feel right for now, with their austere and elevated sensibilities. O’Keeffe was deeply influenced by her environment and the magic of nature, light and patterns. I admire how progressive she was as a fiercely independent, self-made woman living in America a century ago. She was ahead of her time. I think it’s a very exciting time to be a female-led business. We’re finally getting the recognition and the limelight that many of us deserve. Women are empathetic leaders, open and creative, and people are wanting a different kind of leadership now. Women have certain sensibilities especially when it comes to the home and I think this is the advantage for Armadillo over our competitors that may be male-led. A major person in my journey has been my business partner Sally Pottharst because she’s everything I’m not. To create an impactful brand, you have to have people around you that are better than you but who also believe in what you do. You can’t do it on your own. It’s also about elevating people. I remember this person in India once told me that, in being a leader, you have to be like a ladder, so you’re there to help others rise. At Armadillo, we’ve put a lot of importance on upskilling within our team because ultimately that’s going to make people love what they do more, and they’re going to be better at their job. Sustainability is a very exciting space for us because we’ve been doing this from the start. Sally and I were very motivated and inspired to build an ethical business and to give back. What’s new is that things are getting a lot easier in that sector because people are becoming more aware. There are a lot more standards, both environmental and ethical, from manufacturers and governments for the way that you run your business. We recently finished building our own home — it’s been a long journey. My husband and I have been collecting pieces like door handles, and ideas from the hotels we stay in on our travels from Mexico to London, for years. So it’s very, very exciting to finally have all of that in one place. We weren’t intending on building but we just couldn’t find the house we were looking for. It took us four years to find the property, which ›› Mar/Apr 2021
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VLife ‹‹ I loved mainly because of this beautiful big tree, a ficus, out the front. In the end we had to demolish the house that was on the site and rebuild, but the tree stayed and influenced a lot of the new design. We worked with the architect Hannah Tribe. We’d been idolising her work for a long time — its simplicity, the proportions, the light and the sensitivity. The brief was about bringing in an Australian aesthetic and combining it with the Californian lifestyle. We wanted something that was about bringing nature in, so the whole of the downstairs living area is really open. The sun and the breeze, the plants and the pool just merge seamlessly from the exterior to the interior. We also needed it to be a space that was slightly indestructible. I wanted the kids to enjoy it and to have people come and go, and to entertain. There’s not a lot of art or colour because my husband and I look at images and colour all day. My husband’s a cinematographer, so we need home to be a sanctuary; a place where we could go and
“The brief was bringing in an Australian aesthetic and combining it with the Californian lifestyle… The sun and the breeze, the plants and the pool just merge seamlessly”
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decompress from our creative and visually stimulating worlds. There’s a sense of slowness and mindfulness to life in general at the moment that’s influenced the way that we run our business and also how we’re designing. I feel excited to be a part of that movement, which has gained new vigour. It’s something that we’re really embracing and advocating for at Armadillo but also in our personal lives, too. I feel very thankful that we’ve been made to stop and look at everything so differently and take stock of what we need and what impact that’s leaving on the earth. I’m most excited about the next decade — for our industry, for our homes, our wellbeing and for our family and our children. It’s a pretty powerful moment in time. VL armadillo-co.com 68
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TH IS PAG E , C LOC K WI S E FR O M TO P in the main bedroom, Oak Air bed from Ethnicraft, enquiries to Trit House; bed linen from Cultiver; Kalahari rug from Armadillo. In the children’s bedroom, Perch bunk bed from Oeuf, enquiries to Kido Store; bed linen from In Bed. Poppy, Leonardo and Felix in the backyard. Details, last pages.
VLife ICONIC STYLE
Andrée Putman
As well as reviving lost classics of the ‘20s and ‘30s via Ecart International, the visionary tastemaker designed furniture and interiors with boutiques for the likes of Alaïa and Lagerfeld.
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Product and interior designer, Andrée Putman.
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By Jason Mowen
piritually charged with sophistication, France has long been a bastion of classical style. Louis XIV laid the cornerstone in the 17th-century and inspired a global mania for all things French, from the gilded courts of the ‘Greats’ — Peter, Catherine and Frederick — right through to the Maison Jansen-draped White House of Jacqueline Kennedy. Few deviations were made from this blueprint of elegance although it has not remained entirely static, as evidenced more recently in the oeuvre of Andrée Putman. “Having been born into what is convenient to call the cradle of good taste, I felt very early on a desire to fight against that old French conception of the ideal, which seems much like a teddy bear worn out by affection,” wrote Putman in her preface to the tome French Style, a must-have in the library of any selfrespecting aesthete. This manifesto, of sorts, formed my first encounter with the designer. One chapter showcased Putman’s own Paris loft from the early 1980s — a precursor to the eclecticism that remains, until today, so very au courant. Done over almost entirely in black and white, the space is punctuated by classics of early 20th-century design and modern pieces juxtaposed against magnificent curveballs, such as a
pair of 19th-century Egyptian Revival armchairs that once belonged to late 19th-century French actor Sarah Bernhardt. Back-to-back either side of a square white column, the armchair composition reads like a sphinx and claw-clad sculpture, elegant but idiosyncratic rather than any homage to the Ancien Régime. “It is through an impassioned choice of furniture, objects and spaces,” she continued, “and through the luxury of the unexpected that houses are sometimes sublime.” Despite the odd antique, Putman’s output was resolutely contemporary across the course of her career, as she settled her score with traditional ‘good’ taste. Her repertoire encompassed the design of products, including furniture and lighting, and an array of sublime interiors from homes to hotels, Parisian boutiques and even the cabin of the
Concorde. There was also the odd left-field project, such as Karl Lagerfeld’s highly playful Memphisladen apartment in Monte Carlo, which Putman described as a “palace for a child”. While her output represented a clear break with the past, it was nevertheless imbued with the spirit of Art Deco, another golden age of French design. The graceful weight and gentle curve of the Crescent Moon sofa is an example of Putman’s passion for the 1920s style, as is her Jeune Bucheron coffee table (both pieces were designed in 2003). Even her 1993 interior of the Concorde for Air France channelled the understated luxury of the interwar years. There was concealed lighting, an aisle rug with zigzag border and crisp white covers over the arc of the headrests — although these were inspired by Japan, where Putman noticed them over the seats of taxis. Born Andrée Aynard in Paris in 1925, Putman’s tour of duty as an artist began with music and later
included the Lagerfeld Gallery (1998) and the refurbishment of Guerlain’s flagship store on the Champs-Élysées (2005). Her daughter Olivia came on board as the studio’s art director in 2007, thus cementing the legacy of Putman elegance and restraint following her mother’s death in 2013. If one closes their eyes and imagines her world, they might see the office of the French minister of culture (1985), or the salon of the VII° Arrondissement Townhouse (2003). Both showcase the minimal lines of her furniture design against the backdrop of elaborate 18th-century boiseries. “If we learn to discriminate, to choose rather than to merely accept, French taste and style can become remarkably fascinating,” she suggested back in the early ’80s. “And as the proverb states, the best soups are made in old pots. We will no longer be bound by old rules that don’t work but we will not have lost the flavour of our tastes.” VL studioputman.com
P HOTO G RAP H E RS: X AV I E R BÉ JOT / TRI P OD AG E N CY (P O RTR AI T ), DE I DI VON SC HA E WE N (O FF I C E ), BE N O Î T FOU G EI R O L (STAD E D E F RA N C E ). I MAGE S CO U RTE SY O F ST U DI O P UT MA N
Despite the odd antique, Putman’s output was resolutely contemporary across her career
TH I S PAG E, F R O M A BOV E
the Paris office of the French minister of culture, Jack Lang, designed by Putman. For the 10th anniversary of the Stade de France, Putman won a competition to redesign the VIP area, which included an 800-metre long corridor.
magazine publishing, and then, in 1958, a decadelong stint designing ‘domestic products’ — “creating beautiful things for nothing” — for the retail chain Prisunic, which seems to have sat somewhere between Terence Conran’s Habitat and an American five-anddime. She married art critic, collector and publisher Jacques Putman at around the same time. In 1978, no longer content with merely collecting the originals, Putman went out on a limb and began to reissue to the mass market (with exclusive authorisation from the designers and their heirs) the forgotten jewels of the interwar period under the name of Écart International. Her timing was perfect. The second generation of modernists was passing from the design scene and interest in the lost masters of the first generation — Jean-Michel Frank, Pierre Chareau, Mariano Fortuny and Eileen Grey, among others — was on the rise. Écart swept Putman onto the international design stage. It was at this time, in 1984, that she created what was arguably the world’s first boutique hotel, Morgans in New York, for Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the ex-owners of Studio 54. The pair approached Putman: “We heard rumours you can design a bathroom without marble.” She would later describe the disco barons’ budget as completely unrealistic. “We had to choose the least expensive tiling, without having to settle for pink. By chance, the tiles came in black and white. The squares create a slight trompe l’oeil optical ‘shift’, which calms as the gaze moves toward the floor. It was a concept of non-colour, to break the rigid laws of the luxury-hotel business.” Versions of the geometric theme were repeated throughout the project and the result was one of flair and ingenuity that continues to influence hotel design to this day. Putman’s eponymous studio was established in 1997 and subsequent projects on her home turf have Mar/Apr 2021
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DESIGN
On the logo Phosphorescent handbags and chairs collaged in archival imagery are just some of the limited-edition works resulting from a unique collaboration between Roman luxury fashion house Fendi and New York-based artist Sarah Coleman. By Verity Magdalino Photographed by Daria Kobayashi Ritch or multidisciplinary artist Sarah Coleman appropriating luxury products boldly emblazoned with logos and reworking them into everyday objects from folding chairs to pill bottles is not only about elevating the ordinary but also about injecting fun, playfulness and a left-field sense of irony into something familiar and overlooked. So what happens when the tables are turned and a luxury fashion house — in this case, Fendi — comes knocking with a request to rework one of its most popular handbags? Manhattan-born-and-bred Coleman, who got her first job with architect Peter Marino where she helped to design stores for Chanel before making art full-time in 2019, takes it all in her stride. “I’m so in love with Fendi and have been looking through its history in my own way for such a long time, so going through the archives felt like saying hi to so many old friends,” she says. Silvia Venturini Fendi, the brand’s creative director for accessories, mens and childrenswear, says she first discovered Coleman via Instagram and called on the artist to create a capsule collection of limited-edition pieces because of her sense of creative joy and “clever irony”. “We share this same approach to creativity so of course I was naturally drawn to her work,” says Fendi who flew an artistic rendering of the optical vertigo-effect Fendi FF logo by artist Sarah Coleman on a Peekaboo bag in plaster and acrylic paint. O PP O S I TE PAG E Coleman, holding a Fendi Baguette bag, in her New York City studio with inspiration for the collaborative project with Fendi for Design Miami.
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Coleman to Rome to meet the design team and start work on the project, which launched late last year in Fendi’s Miami store to coincide with the annual international design fair Design Miami. “Sarah has already been repurposing our iconic prints so it invited the opportunity to see how this creativity can evolve by collaborating. Her work embodies our spirit of taking handcraft in new directions — she can reimagine the conventional into the unexpected — and at Fendi we have a strong heritage and ethos based around womanhood, so it’s always a pleasure to work with female talents.” Some of Fendi’s recent collaborations with female creatives include Cristina Celestino, Sabine Marcelis and Chiara Andreatti — all of whom have worked with the luxury house as part of an ongoing strategy to promote emerging talent at Design Miami. For Coleman, Fendi’s brief was simple — to be disruptive. “I felt very liberated by Silvia’s request to be disruptive so I was ready for the challenge,” says Coleman. “I knew she wanted me to go against the grain… I feel like she was telling me to leave any shyness at the door and create outside of the box.” The artist looked to the candy-pop colours of Miami’s art scene and the spirit of the 1970s as inspiration to reimagine three different takes on the Peekaboo IseeU handbag, a design by Venturini Fendi that first launched in 2008 then refreshed with the IseeU iteration last year. A warped and squeezed FF logo, manipulated via the Instagram app FaceTune and applied with glow-in-the-dark electric lime-coloured beads and embroidery, adorns one of the classic it-bags; another features an embossed logo in bright sunshine yellow; a third applies brightly cheerful, multi-coloured FF thread embroidery onto a canvas background. In addition, Coleman plastered the facade of Fendi’s Miami boutique in a vertigo effect of the FF logo. She has also reupholstered furniture and cushions in the fabric from vintage designer bags including a 1980s Fendi beach bag, and re-covered an acrylic zigzag chair in a collage of images from the luxury fashion house’s archives. “These memorable moments in Fendi history, especially the drama of the 1980s, and the way the ’70s were recalled through the lens of the ’90s and early 2000s were very inspiring,” says Coleman. “Karl Lagerfeld’s [the late creative director of Fendi] process in general, the sketching and the collaging, sparked something in me. Even though he was undoubtedly a genius, his unpretentious nature of creation made his work more accessible to me, and directly inspired the collage process.” VL @sarahcoleman fendi.com
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ARTWOR K S NU M BE R 3 AN D 4 , P OA. HAI R AN D M AK E- U P: AN D RE A B LAC K
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y parents came to Australia from South Korea in the late 1970s. My mother passed away when I was 19. They didn’t want me to know anything of their experience. I realised how ignorant I was of their background when as a child I asked my mother, “How was the boat, coming to Australia?” and she looked at me blankly and said, “We came on Cathay Pacific.” I studied law and worked briefly as a solicitor. That’s another part of the immigrant story. If you get the marks at school then it’s almost expected that you study medicine or law — I didn’t feel I had an option. But my earliest memories are of making art. I remember as a child making a mural in different colours with my hands on a wall of my room and I never got in trouble for it. I’m self-taught. I’ve contemplated going to art school but I don’t think I’m ever going to be a very good technical painter because I don’t have the patience. For me, it’s not about technicality but more about creative expression and feeling. Everything has happened quite organically up to now. I had a fashion label for a while and a place in Bali and that’s when I started painting. I’ve always tended to do two things at once. I was painting every day and every night. My painting started properly when I first met Ted, my husband, here in Sydney. We stole a big Gymea lily in Bondi from the side of the road. He had his camera — he’s a photographer — and we ended up shooting this flower and experimenting with pouring different liquids onto it. It was fun. We just kept doing that for a few months and then we had our first show. We ended up selling a lot that night. We’ve been producing the floral artworks now for almost 10 years. My new work may look different to what I’ve done in the past but the story is the same. It’s about movement and tapping into that life force within yourself and, in turn, into nature and its organised chaos. My work is driven by life and the little things that get you excited, the fact that your heart pumps faster — that’s a motion and I want this new work to look like it’s moving. There’s also a fragility I want to express. The work is made with plaster, resin, paint and I’ve added porcelain — I’m constantly tempted to break it. Time stops when I paint. There’s always a moment — it’s the best feeling possible — when I’ve worked on something for hours and I paint over the whole canvas. It’s the most invigorating thing. It’s really fun to make something and then destroy it. Maybe that’s the lesson I learnt when my mother passed away. Having kids has given me confidence. It not only gives you less time so you really need to make good use of the time you have but when I had my first daughter, I really realised that women have so much power. It sounds silly but I realised why Beyoncé has so much power — she really taps into that feminine strength. I hate to say it but I think that women have more power than men, and that is a gift that’s given to us. I really tapped into that for my new work. And I’ve tapped into that sense of my mother’s power, too, and I guess I’ve healed a bit through that. Life is so short. Delving into my mother’s life for my recent show has really made me think about that. We used to drive past this house when I was a kid and she’d say, “I’m going to buy that house,” and then she ended up buying the house next door. Then it was, “I’m going to retire in that house”, and then she died. And I think that’s life. It’s the one thing that’s sure, that we’re all going to die. So right now for me it’s about living in the present. The only issue with that is if you live your life and every moment as if it’s your last, things can get pretty wild, so having kids has given me the balance I need. VL Vicki Lee Gallery, 2/350 Bourke St, Surry Hills NSW. vickileegallery.com @vickileelee
VLife ART
Quiet power Sydney-based artist and former fashion designer Vicki Lee instils her trademark sense of fluidity, motion and fragility into a collection of works inspired by her late mother. As told to Verity Magdalino Photographed by Ted O’Donnell
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Globally, 25% of the purchase price from the sale of each item in the Pink Pony collection is directed to an international network of cancer charities. Within Australia, proceeds benefit Cancer Australia.
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T H ES E PAG ES in the main bedroom of this Stockholm home, 280 sofa and New Bauhaus armchair from Pierre Augustin Rose, enquiries to Alm; both sofa and armchair upholstered in Basile viscose linen from Pierre Frey, enquiries to Milgate; Roattino floor lamp by Eileen Gray for ClassiCon, enquiries to Anibou; vintage Murano glass chandelier; artwork by Mats Bergquist; maple console by Daniel Östman Interiors; bowls (on console) from Enriqueta Cepeda; sisal carpet, enquiries to International Floorcoverings; curtains in silk from MYB Textiles; off-white sand plaster-finished walls. Details, last pages.
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Kindredsouls Sofia Wallenstam, cofounder of fashion label House of Dagmar, and her long-time design collaborator Louise Liljencrantz have reworked an Arts and Crafts-style Stockholm home into a timeless vision of quiet yet powerful elegance. By Jeni Porter Photographed by Magnus Mårding
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in another view of the main bedroom, Sunny Side Up SSU solid mappa burl coffee table from Liljencrantz x KFK Master Cabinet-makers; vintage ceramic bowl by Carl-Harry Stålhane. Homeowner Sofia Wallenstam in the main bedroom; artwork by Louise Nevelson. T H ES E PAG ES , F RO M L EF T
TH ESE PAGE S in the kitchen, Transylvania limestone island; bar stools and lamp (on right, on windowsill) from Veer Makers; custom birch cabinets in Farrow & Ball Hardwick White; wall and rangehood surround in hand-glazed zellige tiles; tapware from Dornbracht.
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ou could say Sofia Wallenstam applied an innate Swedish sensibility to her home in an early 20th-century heritage-protected building on a nature reserve in central Stockholm. The expansive space has minimalist lines, a restrained palette and robust natural materials. But the cofounder of fashion brand House of Dagmar deviates from her compatriots in one critical respect: for Wallenstam, there is no contest between aesthetics and utility. Aesthetics win every time. “I would say I have the usual clean Scandinavian or Swedish design language but I am not always so practical,” she admits, casting a critical eye towards the solid walnut and oxidised steel dining table that weighs 350 kilograms and anchors the open kitchen to suit life at home with two young daughters. Others may not have commissioned a 4.6-metre-long rug, custom dyed to match the soft grey-beige walls, to place under that massive dining table. “But… It has to look nice. If I live in nice surroundings it gives me so much energy, to be a good mother, to do well at work.” Besides, should the inevitable happen, “a stain is not the end of the world,” says Wallenstam, who encourages her daughters to have the run of the house. “It should be a living home.” The girls are the next generation of women being brought up to live by principles that underpin their mother’s professional and personal life. Wallenstam and her two sisters set up their fashion house in 2005 inspired by the legacy of their grandmother Dagmar, a tailor who believed in craftsmanship and quality. Their mother, in turn, instilled a mantra of sustainability in her daughters. “My mum always taught us to buy something that’s better and more long-lasting, everything from clothes to a dining table. Make it rustic and genuine because it will last a lifetime.” Looking around the family home that Wallenstam created with her interiors collaborator Louise Liljencrantz, the evidence of these values is everywhere. From the Transylvania limestone-clad kitchen benchtops to the stained oak wardrobes meticulously handcrafted to echo the original woodwork of the 1905 house, everything is made for forever. Wallenstam had renovated seven places in the decade before she and husband Christian bought the home she can’t imagine ever leaving. That was five years ago and she’s just completed a second renovation after the couple bought an adjacent apartment. The extra space enabled them to expand the kitchen and create a sanctuary for themselves in an atmospheric space in the roofline. “I will never leave now,” declares Wallenstam of her home and its idyllic locale, the island of Djurgården. The home is one of five apartments in a red-brick house designed by Swedish architect Isak Clason. Clason was an influential figure in National Romanticism but, for this house, he also drew on the early Arts and Crafts style of the Red House by William Morris and Philip Webb. The result was an architectural idiom that was new for turn-ofthe-century Sweden. “Sofia’s home has an important legacy that we wanted to embrace in the design process,” says Liljencrantz. The interiors and furniture designer wanted new additions to seem as if they’d always been there. Being a designer working for a designer could be fraught but the two women work together almost by osmosis. “We know each other in and out,” says Wallenstam of a relationship spanning many projects over many years. This one started with research enriched by a box of architectural drawings and family photographs from the early days. Seeing the original kitchen inspired them to dispense with overhead cupboards and tile an entire wall. “From there we took it into our own time but it is oh so important to preserve the soul of the house,” says Liljencrantz. The kitchen fireplace shows her skill at navigating the territory between heritage, homage and contemporary intervention. Made of bricks and granite with glass sides, it is elevated to bench height so you can see it from anywhere in the room and has wood storage underneath. “So, it’s practical but above all very beautiful,” says the designer. It could be her client talking. As the weather turned this northern autumn, the fireplace became the focal point of the family, just as Wallenstam had dreamed. Recalling a recent Friday night when they lit the fire and she and her husband sat on the sofa with a glass of red as the girls played charades and sang, she says: “It made me think this is exactly how I want to live.” VL houseofdagmar.com @liljencrantzdesign
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in the dressing room, custom stained oak cabinets by Liljencrantz Design; Brasilia S suspension lamp from Ozone Light; Plain Nettle rug from Knut; herringbone oak flooring. O P P OSI TE PAG E in another view of the main bedroom, custom steel bedframe with bedhead upholstered in Pierre Frey Charly linen by Liljencrantz Design; pillows upholstered in Métaphores Biarritz Sable linen wool; Mayfair table lamp from Vibia, enquiries to Koda Lighting; artwork by Clay Ketter. T HIS PAG E
T H ES E PAG ES in the dining area, solid walnut and oxidised steel dining table; Claude chairs from Ritzwell, enquiries to Stylecraft; rug from Knut; Branching Bubble chandelier from Lindsey Adelman; custom stone banquette seating with cushions upholstered in Dedar Fifty Fifty viscose linen, enquiries to South Pacific Fabrics; painting (on left) by Mirja Ilkka; Stones Into Camera, Beggars Banquet (1968) photograph (at centre) by Michael Joseph; photographic artwork (on right) by Blanche Reuthersward.
the view from the living room, overlooking the sea. In the guest bathroom, calacatta marble double vanity; tapware from Dornbracht. Details, last pages. T H ES E PAG ES , F RO M L EF T
State MIND of A dialogue between art, architecture and design drives the philosophy of FLORENTINE curator Valentina Guidi Ottobri. Her passion project is a hybrid home gallery of Italian artisanal craft.
By Virginia Jen Photographed by Monica Spezia
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T H IS PAGE in the living area with a view onto the terrace of this Florence home, 1970s travertine coffee table; ceramic sculptural speaker (on table) by Misha Khan for VGO Associates; Tidal Chroma Spill rug by Germans Ermics for CC-Tapis, enquiries to Mobilia. O PP OS IT E PAG E creative director Valentina Guidi Ottobri in the kitchen. Details, last pages.
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T
here is something innately comforting about a curve. That gentle and organic concave, perhaps realised in a body, structure or sculpture, is intimate, inviting and pleasing to the eye. Curves have intrigued Valentina Guidi Ottobri for as long as she can remember. “I’ve always found female bodies very interesting and beautiful. My grandmother used to have this Fernando Botero painting at home and I remember that I was fascinated by the curves,” Ottobri says. So it comes as no surprise that sensuous lines have a presence in Ottobri’s home and gallery space in her beloved hometown and capital of Italy’s Tuscan region, Florence. A fiercely proud Florentine native, Ottobri’s curiosity with art and aesthetics has led to her becoming a curator and creative director of art and design. After seven years with luxury retailer Luisaviaroma, managing the home division and working across marketing campaigns, in-store installations and exhibitions, Ottobri struck out on her own to further explore meaningful connections between creatives through collaboration and community. To that end, she has formed her own collective, VGO Associates, which brings together all of these facets. “VGO Associates was born with the aim of creating ‘functional sculptures’ that emphasise the essence of the object itself rather than hedonism, aesthetics or style, to give life and [a sense of] counterculture,” says Ottobri. “It’s about standing out from the prevailing materialism of the last century.” The result so far is a range of furniture, objets d’art and accessories, many produced by artisans utilising time-honoured regional skills. “We think that in addition to techniques and materials, what denotes the quality of a project is the vision and cultural exchange that stimulates and enriches us,” says the creative director. “We work with young emerging designers and established artists with an illuminated and sculptural approach to the project. In this vision, the artistic message that design offers can be as important as that of a work of art.” Her Florence base showcases the merits of design as a living work of art. Located at the top of a 1970s building, Ottobri’s one-bedroom apartment serves as a microcosm representative of the chaos of the city. Some original elements, such as the marble floor at the entrance, have been kept, and the feel of a Tuscan farmhouse is re-created with the addition of wicker blinds and frangisole brickwork. Walls are swathed in sun-baked tones inspired by weathered terracotta rooftops and examples of local craftsmanship can be found at every turn from the scagliola inlay work of Bianco Bianchi to Poggi Ugo’s renowned terracotta pieces and sculptures by Antonio Di Tommaso. Contemporary touches also find a place here. Celebrated creative Cristina Celestino’s graphic tiles for Fornace Brioni are featured on the terrace for high-impact contrast with the cacti garden. And gracing the floor of the living area is Germans Ermics’s gradient rug for CC-Tapis, with its own undulating tones and lines. Ottobri now splits her time between the apartment, a place she calls the Cabana, and the South of France. She hopes that the Cabana is one of many VGO Associates projects that weave the value of design and art into the everyday fabric of life. “My Cabana has its own rituals,” she says. “For example, admiring the Duomo in the morning mist from the small kitchen terrace. Reading a book in the dining room, comfortably seated or lying on the leather sofa. Taking a long shower in the bathroom that recalls a Moroccan desert landscape. Having lunch among the cacti on the terrace on a beautiful sunny day.” This concept of giving life and soul to a space through a combination of animated sculpture-objects, cultural artefacts and artisanal pursuits only enriches the comfort of home. Here is an engaging exhibition of eras and cultures, not at all stuffy or esoteric, but captivating and ahead of the curve. VL valentinaguidiottobri.com vgo-associates.com
in the hallway, in the central concrete module, sculptures and talismans, a mix of ceramic, raffia and terracotta pieces, all made in Florence, including some by Antonio Di Tommaso. O PPO SI TE PAGE in another view of the living area, 1970s leather sofa; The Triumph of Amphitrite (on wall) and Poseidon and Thusa ceramic plates (on table) by Simon Miller for VGO Associates; papier-mâché chandelier from VGO Associates.
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TH IS PAG E in the bathroom, rose marble stoup found in Assisi, restored by Matteo Peducci for VGO Associates; mirror from Zara Home; terracotta urn found in Apulia. O PP OS IT E PAG E a view of the kitchen from the central module.
T H IS PAG E in the main bedroom, bed linen from Once Milano; Pebble wall light by Kunaal Kyhaan Seolekar; raffia wallcovering (behind bed) by Misha from VGO Associates. O PPO SI T E PAG E on the terrace, Snake scagliola table designed by VGO Associates and produced by Bianco Bianchi; Classic stools from Poggi Ugo; Scenografica floor tiles by Cristina Celestino for Fornace Brioni. Details, last pages.
“The artistic message that design offers can be as important as that of a work of art” VALENTINA GUIDI OTTOBRI
Cool,
collected
The eternal elegance of a Beaux Arts-style mansion in Brussels has been enhanced by architect David Van Severen and photographer Martina Bjorn with an expansive and intuitive translation of scope, space and style. By Verity Magdalino Photographed by Christoffer Regild Styled by Maja Hahne Regild
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homeowners David Van Severen and Martina Bjorn in the living area; Strips sofa by Cini Boeri for Arflex, enquiries to Space Furniture; artwork by Bas Princen. O P POS IT E PAGE the exterior of the home from the garden, which features hundred-year-old trees.
TH I S PAGE
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hen the Belgian architect David Van Severen and his wife, Swedish photographer Martina Bjorn, first came across their future home in Brussels, they were fascinated by the breathtaking grandeur of the 19th-century property located in a quiet, leafy residential area south-east of the city centre. “It faces an avenue with gardens at the front. When we first saw it we had one of those ‘this is too good to be true’ feelings because of its generous open spaces and a big, wild garden at the back,” says Bjorn. “We also loved the neighbourhood. It’s known locally as Little Paris because of the many Parisians living here.” A Beaux Arts-style mansion, the interiors displayed all the typical characteristics of that era: soaring ceilings, elegant tall windows that streamed an abundance of natural light into each room, original stucco detailing, marble fireplaces and exquisite parquetry flooring. “It used to be a lawyers’ office so the first time we saw it, it was filled with endless piles of paper and dossiers of all kinds laying around in a chaotic manner,” says Bjorn. “Walls were painted in various colours and the woodwork was dark but the intrinsic qualities were there.” For self-driven creatives such as Bjorn, who studied architecture before starting her photographic career, and Van Severen, who helms the award-winning architecture practice Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen, it was easy to envision the potential to transform the offices on the lower three floors of the building into a three-bedroom home for themselves and their two children. “We loved the freedom that this generous, open space was able to offer us. Freedom of space and freedom of thought,” says Bjorn. “The spaces are fluid and open despite the very traditional layout.” The couple’s shared vision to enhance the building’s architectural beauty meant renovations were light of hand and undertaken only where absolutely necessary. For example, an enfilade of four generously sized rooms on the top floor were merged to create one large open-plan living area for the family with zones for cooking, dining and lounging. A fresh coat of varnish to bring the aged oak parquet back to life was all that was needed to make the space complete. Other additions included a new steel kitchen and a contemporary black spiral staircase wrapped in delicately perforated metal, which connects all three levels of the house. “Downstairs it was different, as the space needed a deep renovation, providing new bathrooms, bedrooms and other essentials,” says Bjorn. Here in a basement level lies the main bedroom, a warmly textured, minimalist sanctuary with its own private doorway onto the wild garden and ancient woodland beyond. Furnishings are consciously pared-back to enhance the spacious atmosphere of the original interiors. There’s a curated mix of big names and design classics such as Arne Jacobsen’s Series 7 dining chairs, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni’s Taccia lamp and Jasper Morrison’s Cork Family stool with contemporary pieces including a marble bench by Van Severen’s brother Hannes who, with his wife and business partner Fien Muller, runs the successful design studio Muller Van Severen. There are also personal pieces imbued with meaning, such as a low leather chair made by Van Severen’s late father, Maarten, a renowned designer who worked closely with revered Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. “We still talk about not adding too much furniture, to keep the majesty of the rooms and essence of the house,” says Bjorn. “The interiors are made up of an eclectic family of many pieces, collected personally and professionally over the years, mixing and matching styles, origins and ages.”
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“The decoration process has been intuitive. We see it as an interplay of moveable objects and space, which often acts as a frame” MARTINA BJORN
The custom kitchen is just one example that reflects the balancing act between modern design and heritage features, with its clever integration of utilitarian shelving and stovetop unit inside a sandstone fireplace. “It represents the balance between past and present — the true leitmotif of the whole project,” says Bjorn. “One of our favourite moments is when we cook a good meal for our friends here, after coming back with fresh ingredients from the city market.” Van Severen and Bjorn’s art collection too hovers between historic and contemporary. “Every corner in this home has been drawn and composed,” says Bjorn. Case in point: the sculpturally bulbous concrete stools by Brandlhuber+ and sleek slate-grey marble bench by Muller Van Severen positioned adjacent to a stunning original staircase of warm caramel-toned timber. “The decoration process has been very intuitive,” continues Bjorn. “It comes spontaneously from our encounters in life and work, rather than from a specific style or trend. We see it as an interplay of moveable objects and space, which often acts as a frame.” Overlaying all these elements — the timeless furniture pieces, contemporary art and clever fusion of proportion and space — is a serene atmosphere of peace and calm. It’s a mood enhanced by the considered placement of a multitude of mirrors that reflect the green of the surrounding garden outside — which Bjorn describes as a “wild piece of forest” — and its ancient beech and oak trees. It’s little surprise then that one of the couple’s favourite retreats is a long balcony, accessed through generous French doors in the dining room, with a view of this romantic slice of Eden. “During spring and summer we enjoy our breakfast in the morning sun here,” says Bjorn. “The day could not start in a better way.” VL officekgdvs.com martinabjornstudio.com
in another view of the living room, Wolfers daybed by Richard Venlet for Maniera; Metrò side table by Piovenefabi for Maniera; 1950s coffee table by Mathieu Matégot; set design prototype (beside lamp) by Christo Nogues.
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TH I S PAG E on the top-floor landing with a view of the study.
TH I S PAGE in the study, shelves from Tixit; Taccia lamp by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni for Flos, enquiries to Euroluce; Anna de Rijk portrait photograph (at centre) by Martina Bjorn; artworks and stone sculptures by Dan Van Severen.
in the main bedroom, bed linen from Descamps; Stool Solo floor lamp by Richard Venlet for Maniera; marble slab from Van Den Weghe; resin floor. O P PO S I TE PAG E in the ensuite, glossy black-green painted ceiling, custom marble bath from Van Den Weghe. Details, last pages.
TH I S PAGE
T HIS PAG E in the living area leading to the fireplace nook of this Paris home, solid timber armchairs by Dan Pollock from Galerie Desprez Breheret; fractal resin coffee table by Marie Claude de Fouquières from Thomas Tardif; Untitled – Samarcande Serie (2019) artworks by François Mascarello from Mouvements Modernes. OP P OS I TE PAG E architect Marine Bonnefoy in the hallway.
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La nouvelle By Freya Herring Photographed by François Coquerel Styled by Sarah de Beaumont
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t is emotion that informs the output of Paris-based architect Marine Bonnefoy. “I create my architectural projects around memories and the atmosphere within those memories,” she says. “It’s about what I feel.” An elegant dream-like ambience permeates the spaces she creates, none more acutely than in her latest project, an apartment in Paris’s beating heart — the first arrondissement — in the shadow of the Palais-Royal, round the corner from the Musée du Louvre. Bonnefoy has completely transformed the two-bedroom apartment, set within a Directoire building typical of the city’s late-18th century architecture, by splicing through the centre of it with a 20-metre-long wall. Constructed from chestnut wood — “I like its hue and veining,” she says — and snaking through the space, it has changed a standard-issue layout into something fluid and sensuous. Now that the rooms are shaped to encourage movement, one imagines oneself involuntarily, non-ironically, caressing the curves of the wall while ambling down the hall. Almost every room in the 96-square-metre apartment now has a wall replete with curves and Bonnefoy has filled them with objects that highlight and enhance their newfound voluptuousness. The apartment is entirely her vision, from the interior architecture down to the interior design and decoration. “The profession of architecture lost its nobility when architects stopped designing their furniture and thinking about the space as a whole,” she says. “In order to re-enchant the everyday, we must make the drawings and choose the furniture.” An elegant ash wood bench, custom-designed by Bonnefoy, traces the rounded wall in the main living area, flanked by a heavy-set lacquered wood and travertine table that she sourced on Leboncoin, France’s equivalent of Gumtree. The furniture — a blend of vintage, second-hand and newly designed — feels wholly cohesive and realised, leaning towards strongly accented, curved lines and generous, grounded bases. Despite the diminutive size of the apartment, an entire room has been dedicated to the French art of paresser — that is, to laze around. Here, two glossy black armchairs designed by Dan Pollock, made from solid wood — “I love the roundness and softness of his pieces,” explains Bonnefoy — face a pared-back, restored fireplace. It creates a place to pause for the owner, a publisher in her 40s, who shares this polished home with her boyfriend, to sit and read for pleasure. ››
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“I create my architectural projects around memories and the atmosphere within those memories” MARINE BONNEFOY
in the zebrawood breakfast nook, designed by Marine Bonnefoy, candlesticks from Galerie Arcanes; cups from Revol; Artichoke bowl from Jean Roger. OP P OS IT E PAGE in another view of the main living area, 1970s travertine coffee table from Roche Bobois; circa 1930s pulegoso glass vase (on table) by Romano Mazzega from Graziella Semerciyan; Bump glasses from Tom Dixon, enquiries to Living Edge; bowl from Galerie Arcanes; TV cabinet designed by Marine Bonnefoy; floor lamp by Jacques Adnet from Galerie Desprez Breheret; Ensemble de 4 céramiques (2018) ceramic pieces (on bookshelf) by Matthew Chambers from Mouvement Modernes.
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‹‹ The impetus to work together started where so many creative collaborations have flourished: on social media. “The client posted an advert on Instagram,” says Bonnefoy. “She said she was looking for an architect who doesn’t design like everyone else. She received a hundred names in all, and chose me.” She put her full trust in Bonnefoy. “I was given carte blanche to express myself freely,” says the architect. “She simply said, ‘I want an apartment to entertain my friends in and to party in.’” In response, Bonnefoy slicked the walls with ochre yellow paint so that Paris’s legendary pink-tinged light is brightened and intensified as it floods the rooms. “The client tells me that every day, in every space and at every hour, they are amazed by the light.” It’s a colour that, with its rustic associations, both references the building’s 200-year-plus history, and helps to highlight the many handmade objects within. A bespoke ‘conversation bench’ links the kitchen to the fireplace nook. “It was custom-made by a friend, Hervé Brisot, who is a basketmaker,” says Bonnefoy, who commissioned the piece. “His work with wicker demonstrates great delicacy.” Over in the narrow kitchen — with what Bonnefoy terms its “small window; a poetic little coquetry, offering a view of the rooftops of Paris” — deep brown granite makes up the worktop and inset sink. “The stone looks strangely like fossilised wood,” muses Bonnefoy. “When your hand skims across it, it feels like the veins you feel in a piece of timber.” Contrasting with these ancient stones and handicrafts, contemporary art features throughout. Above a sofa, designed by Bonnefoy and upholstered in oatmeal-toned Rubelli fabric, hangs a sculpture by glass artist Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert. “This work is hypnotising,” she says. “His glass-blowing technique is spectacular. Its pearly rendering makes it so mysterious.” A Vincent Beaurin sculpture selected for the main bedroom sits like two coloured pebbles above the bed. Made of tiny glass flakes, it is dangerously tactile, its mottled texture emphasising the room’s ancient timber columns and, with its curves, that of the newly designed wall. “It’s a work that both contrasts and blends with the spirit of the room,” says Bonnefoy. The magic of these spaces reveals itself in these juxtapositions — in the vibrant colours and provocative textures, and in the creatively sourced objects that sit among it all. Nothing jars; it feels neither forced nor conscious. “I put a lot of faith in my intuition,” says Bonnefoy. By engaging her instincts, she has created a deeply felt masterpiece. VL en.marinebonnefoy.com 120
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“Architecture lost its nobility when architects stopped designing their furniture and thinking about the space as a whole. In order to re-enchant the everyday, we must make the drawings and choose the furniture” MARINE BONNEFOY
All in the
BALANCE
Interior designer Edwina Glenn elevates the everyday in the Melbourne home of philanthropist, advocate for women’s rights and self-described “brazen hussy” Jill Reichstein OAM. By Annemarie Kiely Photographed by Sharyn Cairns 124
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ffer any mother the Albert Schweitzer insight that happiness belongs to those who have found how to serve and get ready for the ensuing rant. The bare truth of it, as recently told with biting reality, is that women still bear the brunt of household hardship and have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. The notion of serving, in this gender regressive moment, seems more rooted in perpetuating patriarchy than the pursuit of happiness, which makes this project all the more deserving of scrutiny. Not because it’s an object lesson in how to redress period architecture for 21st-century living but because it enshrines the discretion, humility and quiet strength of two women who live by the Schweitzer maxim. One does so with a design vigour that seeks to elevate the life experience of others in structure, and the other does so with a philanthropic determination to effect structural change so that everyone has equal access to that elevated experience. Meet Edwina Glenn, the interior designer, fielding a full-time design practice and three young children, and her client Jill Reichstein OAM, a mother of two whose overtaxed time has long fed entirely into philanthropy. She currently serves as chair of the Reichstein Foundation, the not-for-profit charity established by her late industrialist father Lance Reichstein; a member of the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network, an entity matching donor
dollars to change-makers, science and sustainability; and as a board member on trusts including Australians Investing in Women (formerly Australian Women Donors Network), an organised advocacy for women, which she cofounded with Eve Mahlab AO in 2009. For services to philanthropy Reichstein was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2000. But the altruistic activist is at pains to counter any perception that she belongs to a privileged coterie of wealth dispensing money through private trust fund for the feathering of family nest and crest. She frames more as an agent of change — a ballsy blond, or, better still “a brazen hussy” as she self-describes in borrow of the title attaching to a recently released documentary on 1970s Australian feminism. Reichstein stood at its rebellious frontline, marching in protest of the Vietnam War, fighting for abortion law reform, forging community child-care centres for working migrant mothers and cofounding the first women’s refuge in Victoria. “It’s still so critical for women,” she says in reference to Covid’s fanning of domestic violence flames. “I’m so pleased the state government has decided to get behind social housing.” ‘Change not charity’ is the mantra that pushes her philanthropy down uncharted pathways. “But in order to create real change,” Reichstein says, “it’s important that you don’t do it for people, you do it with people.” This missive about collaboration and change makes any ensuing ask about improvements to her bayside terrace home sound utterly superficial. But ever the advocate for women, ››
“We inserted a generous new arched opening between the two front rooms, demolished a dining room wall and reorientated the kitchen, laundry and powder room. This transformed the house”
‹‹ Reichstein regales with the list of females who, over the years, have elevated her domestic experience with design and enthuses about Glenn’s grasp of her character. “I’m a triple Libran,” she says in generalisation of her own aesthetic sensibility, “always fighting for a balanced world view.” Glenn, who came to Reichstein’s attention through the recommendation of friends, fed that desire for equilibrium into a revised plan that opened up an introspective front-of-house to the picturesque vista of a tree-lined street and reinstated division between rear kitchen and dining rooms where recent renovation had merged them into an indiscriminate whole. “We inserted a generous new arched opening between the two front rooms, demolished a dining room wall and reorientated the kitchen, laundry and powder room,” recalls Glenn. “This transformed the house and created two new sight lines. “No need to appease a tribe here,” she adds in reference to all the child-centred design requests she receives from clients with lives likes her own — “getting up at 5am, pumping out concept, getting breakfast for the kids, getting them to school, continuing to work with a toddler at my feet, doing school pick-up, homework, more work, dinner…”. Refreshingly, Reichstein is a “grounded” and busy empty-nester, who expressed a liking for Carrara marble and the rugged bush-meets-beach coastline of Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula. Glenn accordingly clad rejigged service areas in honed Arabascato Corchia marble from Signorino, and conjured the Peninsula coast as a textured and tonal evocation of its mist-
filled air, washed-out eucalypt woodlands and bleached driftwood. Grey, the defining colour of Flinders’ bluestone boulders and stormy seas applied to oak cabinetwork, painted in Resene Silver Chalice, while the white of foaming waves coloured key walls and sculptural lamps by Ingo Maurer and Anna Charlesworth. “I need everything around me to be quiet,” says Glenn, who majored in Chinese History and Gender Politics at university before diving into post-grad studies in interior architecture. “I think most mothers do.” Balancing period detail with modern comfort and her client’s want to find a new home for any site discard, Glenn was at pains to manifest Reichstein’s self-deprecating philanthropy with an understated generosity of space, as displays in the upper-level master suite — a luxuriously low-key synthesis of stair landing and two small bedrooms. “She is such an extraordinary woman who practices what she preaches,” says Glenn in justification of this expansive gesture. “I’ve learnt so much from her in such a short time and know that I and many others stand on her shoulders.” And after walking so tall for so long under such collective weight, Reichstein is deserving of the long luxury lie-down posits Glenn. But knowing that her triple Libran client will only consider the nap after true balance is found for all repeats her role model’s words: “Only when there is equity for women will there be social justice.” VL edwinaglenn.com.au reichstein.org.au
Bright
in the library of this Milan apartment, original bookshelves, vintage sofa reupholstered in Kvadrat fabric; chairs from Galleria Luisa Delle Piane. O PPO S IT E PAG E homeowner Tamu McPherson in the living room. Details, last pages.
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Photographer, writer and editor Tamu McPherson adds a vivid zing of uplifting colour and the shapely silhouettes of statement furniture to energise an historic Milan apartment. By Jane Keltner de Valle Photographed by Valentina Sommariva
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amu McPherson’s journey from Kingston, Jamaica, to the heart of Milan just goes to show that you can’t always pin your destination in advance. After leaving the Caribbean as a child for the artistic enclave of Nyack, New York, she eventually moved to the Big Apple to study at Fordham Law, where she fell for an Italian student. Once each had graduated, Milan was the clear place for them to build a home and, in McPherson’s case, a hit lifestyle website. There the two had a son, and McPherson, with a trove of design at her fingertips, launched online forum All the Pretty Birds in 2008, capturing the fashion world’s attention. And now, even amid the pandemic, the style-setter has continued to tell uplifting bold and brilliant fashion stories. Her weekly #prettylockdown Instagram posts have juxtaposed inspiring outfits with her elegant apartment. The family of three moved into the historic three-bedroom home, distinguished by original wood panelling and mosaic floors, several years ago, though it wasn’t new to her husband. His mother had purchased it nearly two decades prior as a place to reconnect with her two sons after the passing of their father. Its unique U-shape configuration allowed for mother and children to have their own wings, affording the 20-somethings a degree of independence. As time passed and the kids flew the coop, the apartment proved too big for just la madre. So when McPherson and her husband began searching for a larger place for themselves and their own son, she handed them the key. McPherson credits her mother-in-law, an academic and aesthete, with opening many doors. “She introduced me to life in Milan. I would go to the opera with her and her friends, sit in her box at La Scala.” Signora also provided valuable decorating guidance, bequeathing vintage treasures by the likes of Le Corbusier and Carlo Scarpa and connecting McPherson with antiques dealer and interior decorator Raimondo Garau, whom she enlisted to help furnish her home. “My mother-in-law has spectacular taste,” McPherson says. “I didn’t want to do a lot of work to the apartment.” She and Garau started by painting the walls an elegant sage green, then set about layering antiques he procured with the existing furnishings, among them dining chairs sourced at Salone del Mobile and a credenza from the old Pirelli headquarters that they repurposed as a china cabinet. “Our previous apartment was all Le Corbusier and everything you see now on Instagram,” says McPherson. “Raimondo told me, ‘You need to introduce a new spirit and make this home your own.’ ” For McPherson, known for her vibrant ensembles, there is nothing more personal than colour. “My childhood house in Jamaica was green on the outside!” she says with a laugh. “I grew up with colour. I’ve always loved it.” In her living room, a magenta sofa by Florence Knoll and a chocolate-brown one by Luigi Caccia Dominioni now surround a 1970s cocktail table accented with tiered blue-glass discs. Nearby, a pink Ettore Sottsass Shiva vase is displayed atop an antique Chinese lacquered cabinet. The art on their walls also carries a certain sentimentality. Hanging in the entryway, for instance, is a Micaiah Carter photograph that shows a young woman’s braided hair in barrettes, reminding McPherson of “little black girls growing up”. And her biographical journey further reveals itself in the kitchen, where she has mastered Italian staples like risotto but proudly declares, “We make our chicken soup with green plantains.” In cooking, as in decorating, colour adds personality. VL @tamumcpherson raimondogarau.com
“My childhood house in Jamaica was green on the outside. I grew up with colour. I’ve always loved it” TAMU MCPHERSON
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T HE SE PAG ES in another view of the living room with the dining room beyond, magenta sofa by Florence Knoll for Knoll, enquiries to Dedece; sofa by Luigi Caccia Dominioni; chairs from an antiques market in the French Riviera; coffee tables sourced by Raimondo Garau; antique Chinese lacquered cabinet; grey vase (on cabinet) from Understate; Shiva vase by Ettore Sottsass for BD Barcelona Design, enquiries to Living Edge; dog statuette, present from McPherson’s mother-in-law; 1970s Spanish brass and timber floor lamp; photograph by Filippo Chieli.
T HI S PAG E in the main bedroom, 1950s chair reupholstered in Kvadrat fabric; Frère Jaques bed by Philippe Starck for Cassina; custom-designed closet with fabric fronts. OPP OS IT E PAGE McPherson in her studio, reupholstered vintage chairs sourced by Raimondo Garau; Shogun lamp by Mario Botta for Artemide; painting by Marcel Cordeiro. Details, last pages.
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They may be the hardworking hubs of the home but kitchens and bathrooms are also spaces that offer an opportunity to flex your creative muscle. Here, the movers and shakers of the design world reveal pearls of wisdom, sharing their favourite style essentials and expert knowledge. Produced by Victoria Baker
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ON DESIGN
In this Woollahra powder room by Handelsmann + Khaw, Verde stone from Granite and Marble Works; Turkish tapware from Saardé; 1940s French sconces from The Vault Sydney; Iksel wallpaper from Boyac.
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A beautiful freestanding enamel cooker, like an Aga or La Cornue, is a way to make a contemporary kitchen look slightly more traditional. Tamsin Johnson
Hands down, our favourite hardware and pulls are from Nanz. The quality is exceptional — they are the Bentley of hardware. Alexandra Donohoe Church, Decus Interiors
In this bathroom by Articolo, Slim pendant light in Bronze, from $5700, from Articolo.
Engineered stone in Black Tempal, from $600 per sq m, from Caesarstone. A B OV E Smeg 50s Style Retro Under Bench dishwasher, $2190, and stand mixer, $703, both from Winning Appliances. BE LO W The Water Monopoly Rockwell bath, from $12,885, from The English Tapware Company.
Australian tapware is really ahead of the game, in terms of the range and the finishes. Gillian Khaw, Handelsmann + Khaw
Everyday elegance A SMART, VERSATILE SURFACE THAT’S ALSO CARBON NEUTRAL, DEKTON BY COSENTINO WILL ELEVATE YOUR KITCHEN’S FUNCTIONALITY WITH STYLE.
COHESIVE LOOK
Inspired by the luxury and timeless quality of natural stone, Dekton by Cosentino surfaces are available in a variety of colours and finishes to link different elements together and add further interest to the whole space.
RENOVATING A KITCHEN presents all manner of options but there are a few key elements that cannot be overlooked. Choosing a durable and distinctive surface for your cooking zone is an essential ingredient to a kitchen’s success. For this relaxed yet refined space designed by Kyal and Kara — of The Block and Reno Rumble fame — the seasoned renovating duo turned to Dekton by Cosentino ultra-compact surfaces. In this open-plan zone, the island bench embodies style and function. As the hub of the home, the kitchen needed to be consistent with the space’s overall coastal feel. “Rather than injecting colour into this kitchen, we layered different textures using a simple palette of cream, tan and beige tones to make it feel warm and inviting,” says Kara. “Our starting point was a beautiful oak floor, which we paired with a Dekton Taga benchtop that played on its warm, earthy tones while introducing pattern.” The Taga finish was inspired by Taj Mahal quartzite. The soft creamy white tone is interspersed with subtle brown-gold veins, giving depth and richness to this luxurious material. “For us, the kitchen has always been the gathering place for friends and family. We wanted this kitchen island to feel
like a grand piece of furniture where memories could be made, so we specified a luxurious, extra-thick benchtop,” says Kara. Choosing a versatile surface for food prep and dining doesn’t mean compromising on style either. “We love the striations and depth in natural stone, but given this is our family home we didn’t want to worry about stains and marks,” says Kara. Emulating the classic appeal of natural stone, Dekton by Cosentino is an innovative and versatile material that can be used indoors and outdoors. Crafted from a blend of raw materials used in glass manufacturing, advanced porcelain materials and quartz, this highly scratch-resistant surface is resistant to water absorption, stains and UV damage. The life cycle of the material is also carbon neutral, making it an eco-conscious choice as well. This smart ultra-compact surface comes as no surprise from Cosentino, a family owned company. Starting out in the 1940s processing marble from the Sierra de los Filabres mountains in Spain, the company’s commitment to research and development in the late 1970s led to its expansion. Cosentino is now a global leader in innovative surface materials and the result of this dedication to excellence can be at your fingertips in your very own kitchen. Visit a Cosentino showroom near you. Find more details at cosentino.com
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David Flack, Flack Studio
COLOUR
Discover state-of-the-art kitchen appliances and technologies, across our range of world-leading brands. Be inspired and experience unrivalled service, as our dedicated XIEQ GEXIVW XS ]SYV WTIGMƼG RIIHW
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P HOTO G RAP H E R: JE RE M Y SI MO NS
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T HI S PAG E Lake Plimsoll in North West Tasmania. Turn the page for the full story.
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Tasmania’s widescreen wilderness, thriving food scene and cultural significance provide sensory nourishment and a chance to untether from mainland concerns. By Dan F Stapleton Photographed by Jeremy Simons
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he island state of Tasmania sprawls across an area roughly the size of Scotland yet is home to just one tenth of that country’s population. In Hobart, the increasingly cosmopolitan capital, it is possible to dose on A-grade coffee and culture before bedding down in an eminently comfortable hotel. But venture beyond city limits and the untamed landscape rushes up to greet you, all brooding greys and greens. Before you tackle the island’s wilder reaches, spend a day or two exploring buzzy Hobart and its surrounds. The city’s blockbuster attraction, The Museum of Old and New Art (mona. net.au) is as provocative as ever, although it’s the less controversial works — including Sidney Nolan’s Snake (Rainbow Serpent) mural and several contributions by James Turrell — that truly stand out. The Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery (tmag.tas.gov.au) is worth a visit, too: alongside temporary exhibitions by Australian artists, you’ll find permanent displays that shed light on the island’s Aboriginal heritage and demystify its native fauna including the elusive thylacine, otherwise known as the Tasmanian tiger. In recent years, a distinctive Tasmanian food culture has emerged, defined by a reverence for the locally sourced and a preference for clean, uncomplicated flavours. The restaurants in Hobart have a hint of mainland polish, while in the outlying towns, the vibe is more rustic: some country spots, such as The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery (see right) and Fat Pig Farm ( fatpig.farm), grow and rear almost everything themselves. To sample more of the island’s best produce, book a tour of the capital’s markets and providores with Gourmania Food (gourmaniafoodtours.com.au). There are several new hotels to choose from in Hobart, including a sleek Crowne Plaza (ihg.com), the five-star MACq 01 Hotel (macq1.com.au) and the luxurious The Tasman (marriott.com) opening in June. Our pick, though, is the atmospheric Moss Hotel (mosshotel. com.au), which occupies several 19th-century warehouses in busy Salamanca Place. Exposed sandstone, beamed ceilings and forest-green bathrooms set the tone, and the largest suites have balconies overlooking the market square. To truly appreciate Tasmania’s scale, it’s worth setting aside at least a few days to explore the interior by foot or by air. For the time-poor, however, there are other options. Tasmanian aviation outfit Par Avion (paravion.com.au) operates day trips from Hobart to the Southwest Wilderness, a little-visited area of national parkland covering over 600,000 hectares. After landing at the tiny Melaleuca airstrip, guests board a boat and cruise along the region’s pristine waterways, which thread through dark mountains and quiet valleys. The return flight, at sunset, cuts inland across the handsome Arthur Range. Par Avion can also help you reach what many consider to be Tasmania’s most captivating destination: the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, deep within the island’s Wilderness World Heritage Area in the Central Highlands. It’s here that visitors can join the famed Overland Track, which traverses temperate rainforest and alpine moorlands on its way to icy Lake St Clair. All but the keenest walkers will need six days to complete the 65-kilometre trek. You can set up camp at certain spots along the way, but for hot showers and cooked meals, consider joining a private tour with the Tasmanian Walking Company (taswalkingco.com.au), which is the sole operator of private huts on the track. Upon reaching Lake St Clair, stay overnight at Pumphouse Point (pumphousepoint.com.au), the converted hydroelectric pumphouse, and watch the weather roll in. If a week-long hike sounds too arduous, book a room at Cradle Mountain Lodge (cradlemountainlodge.com.au) and use it as a base from which to explore the park’s more accessible corners. Cradle Mountain itself overlooks another moody body of water, Dove Lake, which can easily be circumnavigated; the six-kilometre track takes in stunning vistas of the park’s peaks and includes a detour through thick rainforest. Even gentler is the King Billy Track, a one-hour circuit that begins beside Cradle Mountain Lodge and leads deep into the woods. The trail passes some magnificent examples of King Billy pine trees, which can grow upwards of 30 metres and are found nowhere else in the world. Fair warning: standing beside these 1,000-year-old trees, in the midst of such a verdant and mysterious landscape, may induce awe. VL
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SIX OF THE BEST P L A C E S TO E AT A N D DRINK IN AND A R O U N D TA S M A N I A Sample the state’s most innovative dishes and top drops. Hobart Fico Mediterranean influences meet local produce at this Hobart mainstay. Save room for a scoop of bee-pollen gelato. ficofico.net Dier Makr This is degustation done right: precise flavours, superlative seafood and lots of vegetables. The wine list is adventurous and, naturally, Tassie-centric. For further fervent detours into wine territory, pay sister bar Lucinda a visit. diermakr.com Gold Bar Tasmanian spirits are the focus at this friendly bar in an old flour mill on the waterfront. You’ll find almost every local maker of gin and whiskey represented. goldbarhobart.com.au New Norfolk The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery The setting — a former psychiatric hospital — may be unconventional, but the food is quintessentially Tasmanian, made almost entirely with produce from a nearby farm. theagrariankitchen.com Bruny Island Bruny Island Cheese Co. The state’s most acclaimed cheese operation has a tasting room; it’s an easy car-andferry trip from the capital. Or visit the shopfront in North Hobart. brunyislandcheese.com.au Marion Bay Van Bone Tassie-born chef Timothy Hardy (ex-Brae) is at the helm of this anticipated diner, which is set to transform tucked-away Marion Bay when it opens this autumn. @vanbone_restaurant
O PPO S ITE PAG E, FRO M TOP L E FT Tasmanian Truffles in Deloraine in the central north of the state. Constitution Dock, Hobart. A rufousbellied pademelon. Fico restaurant, Hobart.
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T HIS PAGE on the Rainforest walk accessed via Cradle Mountain Lodge.
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Sources Alm studioalm.com Amore Engineering amoreengineering.com.au Anaca Studio anacastudio.com.au Anchor Ceramics anchorceramics.com Anibou anibou.com.au Anna Charlesworth annacharlesworth.com.au Archier archier. com.au Armadillo armadillo-co.com Artedomus artedomus.com Artemide artemide.com Articolo articololighting.com Ashwood Design ashwooddesign. com.au Astra Walker astrawalker.com.au Atelier Tortil @ateliertortil Barovier & Toso barovier.com Balenciaga balenciaga.com BarberaBarbera barberabarbera.studio Bas Princen basprincen.com Becker Minty beckerminty. com Belynda Henry belyndahenry.com Bianco Bianchi biancobianchi.com Bisazza bisazza-australia.com.au Bishop Master Finishes bishopmasterfinishes. com.au Boffi boffi.com Bottega Veneta bottegaveneta.com Boyac boyac.com.au Breville breville.com Brodware brodware.com CDK Stone cdkstone.com.au Cadrys cadrys.com.au Cara Mia Vintage caramiavintage.com Cassina cassina. com Chanel chanel.com Chee Soon & Fitzgerald cheesoonfitzgerald.com Christo Nogues @christonogues ClassiCon classicon.com Clearview Sun Control clearviewsuncontrol.com.au Colombe Design Studio colombe.pl Corsi & Nicolai cnanaturalstone.com Cosentino cosentino.com Cristina Celestino cristinacelestino.com Criteria criteriacollection.com.au Cult cultdesign.com.au Cultiver cultiver.com Daine Singer dainesinger.com Daniel Östman Interiors danielostmaninteriors.com De Fazio defazio.com.au Decus Interiors decus.com.au Dedar dedar.com Dedece dedece.com Descamps descamps.com Designstuff designstuff.com.au District district.com.au Dornbracht dornbracht.com
Dulux dulux.com.au Eco Outdoor ecooutdoor.com.au Egg & Dart egganddart. com.au Enriqueta Cepeda cepedaceramics.com Ethnicraft ethnicraft.com Ett Hem etthem.se Euro Marble euromarble.com.au Euroluce euroluce.com.au EyeSwoon eye-swoon.com Fabrizio Casiraghi fabriziocasiraghi.com Farrow & Ball farrow-ball.com Faye Toogood t-o-o-g-o-o-d.com Filippo Chieli filippochieli.com Flack Studio flackstudio.com.au Flamingo Estate flamingoestate.la Floorspace floorspace.com.au Foresso foresso.co.uk Fornace Brioni fornacebrioni.it Foscarini foscarini.com/en Gaggenau gaggenau.com.au Galerie Arcanes galeriearcanes.fr Galerie Desprez Breheret @desprez_ breheret_gallery Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac ropac.net Galleria Luisa Delle Piane gallerialuisadellepiane.it Granite and Marble Works granitemarble works.com.au Grazia & Co graziaandco.com.au Graziella Semerciyan graziella semerciyan.com Gucci gucci.com Hacienda de San Antonio hacienda desanantonio.com Halcyon Lake halcyonlake.com Hale Mercantile Co. hale mercantilecolinen.com Handelsmann + Khaw handelsmannkhaw.com Harbour 1976 harbouroutdoor.com.au Harrolds harrolds.com.au Hay hayshop.com.au Hem hem.com Hervé Brisot hervebrisot.com Holly Hunt hollyhunt.com Hub Furniture hubfurniture.com.au Hugh Stewart hughstewart.com Hydrotherm hydrotherm.com.au In Bed inbedstore.com International Floorcoverings interfloors.com.au Interstudio interstudio.com.au Intro Interior Contractor intromc.com Jacques Hervouet galeriehervouet.fr Jardan jardan.com.au Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert jeremyglass.com Jonathan Browning Studios jonathanbrowninginc.com Julie Wallinger Interiors juliewallingerinteriors.com Kazari + Ziguzagu kazari.com.au Ke-Zu kezu.com.au Kido Store kidostore.com Knut knutmattor.se Koda Lighting kodalighting.com Kulchi kulchi.com Kvadrat kvadratmaharam.com L&M Home lmhome.com.au Lanserring lanserring.com Liljencrantz Design liljencrantzdesign.com Liljencrantz x KFK Master Cabinetmakers liljencrantz-kfk.com Lindsey Adelman lindseyadelman. com Living Edge livingedge.com.au Loewe loewe.com Loom Towels loom towels.com Louis Vuitton louisvuitton.com MYB Textiles mybtextiles.com Madeleine Blanchfield Architects madeleineblanchfield.com Maniera maniera.be Manor House manor.com.au Markowitz Design markowitzdesign.com Martina Bjorn martinabjornstudio.com Mats Bergquist matsbergquist.com Micaiah Carter micaiahcarter.com Miele miele.com Milgate milgate.com.au Mirja Ilkka @mirja.ilkka Misha mishawallcoverings.com Mobilia mobilia.com.au Mouvements Modernes mouvementsmodernes.com Muller Van Severen mullervanseveren.be Métaphores metaphores.com National Tiles nationaltiles. com.au Nightworks Studio nightworksstudio.com Noble Elements noble elements.com.au Northern northern.no Oeuf oeufnyc.com Oliver Thom oliverthom.com.au Oluce oluce.com Once Milano oncemilano.com Ondene ondene.com Ozone Light ozonelight.com Parthenon Marble parthenonmarble. com.au Perigold perigold.com Phoenix Tapware phoenixtapware.com.au Pierre Augustin Rose pierreaugustinrose.com Pierre Frey pierrefrey.com Pittella pittella.com.au Poggi Ugo poggiugo.it Poliform poliformaustralia.com.au Qasair condari.com.au Reece reece.com.au Resene resene.com.au Revol revol1768.com Richards Stanisich richardsstanisich.com.au Ritzwell ritzwell.com Robert Gray robertgrayphotography.com.au Robert Plumb robertplumb.com.au Roche Bobois roche-bobois.com Royal Oak Floors royaloakfloors.com.au Rubelli rubelli.com Rudi Rocket @rudirocket Saardé saarde.com Signorino signorino. com.au Skheme skheme.com South Pacific Fabrics southpacificfabrics.com Space Furniture spacefurniture.com Spence & Lyda spenceandlyda.com.au Sportmax sportmax.com State Of Kin stateofkin.com.au STS Stone stsstone. com.au Studio Gallery studiogallerymelbourne.com.au Studio Henry Wilson henrywilson.com.au Studio KO studioko.fr Studio Liam Mugavin liammugavin. com Stylecraft stylecraft.com.au Svenskt Tenn svenskttenn.se Tamsin Johnson tamsinjohnson.com Terrazzo Australian Marble terrazzo.net.au The DEA Store thedeastore.com The English Tapware Company englishtapware.com.au The Society Inc thesocietyinc.com.au The Vault Sydney thevaultsydney.com Tixit tixit.de Tribe Studio Architects tribestudio.com.au Trit House trithouse. com.au Understate fossatiinterni.it/en/understate VBO viabizzuno.com Vampt vamptvintagedesign.com Van Den Weghe vandenweghe.be Veer Makers @veermakers Vibia vibia.com Vicstone vicstone.com.au Vincent Beaurin vincentbeaurin.com Vola vola.com Winning Appliances winningappliances. com.au Woodnotes woodnotes.fi Zara Home zarahome.com
Magis Spun chairs, $924 each, from Dedece. Jess wears Acne Studios top, $470 and pants, $540 from Harrolds; Bottega Veneta shoes, $1410. Turn to page 29 for the full story and product details.
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POSTSCRIPT From the living room to the outdoors, update your home in style with these must-haves.
MOBILIA The work of
DOMO Prolific designer Sebastian Herkner’s latest table design for Pulpo,
Italian designer Gino Sarfatti is marked by forward thinking. In 1956, Sarfatti conceived the Model 566 Lamp, which embodies the refined elemental form typical of his designs. Danish company Astep has added another chapter to the tale of this classic piece by utilising modern innovations such as energy-efficient LED technology and a recyclable cast alloy base of aluminium, magnesium, and copper. For more iconic designs, visit mobilia.com.au
the Pina Side Table, is inspired by the theatrical dance work of Pina Bausch. Translating Bausch’s twists and turns with steel, brass and glass, the reflective nature of this piece is further emphasised by the casted glass elements in eight colour combinations. Visit domo.com.au for details.
ZUSTER Getting the conversation started is easy thanks to the generous proportions of the Flow Circular Sofa. Featuring an Australian hardwood timber frame and seat cushions, the sofa is wrapped with feather and down on a Superior High Resilience foam core for structure and comfort. Crafted to order in Melbourne and with a range of fabrics available, this seat can be customised to suit your needs and style; visit zuster.com.au
COTSWOLD INOUT FURNITURE Belgian furniture company Vincent Sheppard blends traditional craftsmanship with timeless appeal in its wide variety of indoor and outdoor furniture. The woven Lloyd Loom pieces — the Jack Dining Chair seen here for instance — utilise recycled kraft paper and steel, and can easily fit any style from classic to contemporary. Check out the collection at cotswoldfurniture.com.au
OSIER BELLE Elevate your
FANULI Italian furniture specialist Fanuli curates quality pieces that epitomise the nation’s rich design heritage, and the Tessa Armchair from Flexform is a prime example. A canaletto walnut frame is combined with handcrafted woven paper rush cord seat and backrest to form a feature lounge chair. For more info, visit fanuli.com.au
alfresco entertaining with a new outdoor dining setting. Osier Belle’s Dining Concrete Bar Table with teak base, as well as a sealed top in either slate or white, is an elegant option for outdoor entertaining. Teamed with all-weather bar stools featuring the signature Osier Belle tie, this contemporary setting creates the perfect spot for casual afternoon drinks and transforms into an intimate space for dinner on a balmy night. For details, visit osierbelle.com.au
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THE RESIDENCE GC SHARES INSIDER TIPS FROM THE ULTIMATE GOLD COAST BL ACK BOOK When COVID-19 saw Sarah Knight relocate with her family back to Australia from Hong Kong, they chose the Gold Coast to lay down roots thanks to its outdoor lifestyle, prestigious schools and proximity to two major airports. Sarah is not alone, the Gold Coast is experiencing an influx of professionals who are seeking out the best luxury properties to call home. Recognising the demand for a comprehensive relocation agency with concierge services including home styling, personal shopping and event planning, Sarah launched The Residence GC. She spends her days helping clients take the stress out of relocating by partnering with local businesses to do everything from furnishings, hanging artwork, installing electronics - even booking beauty services and hair styling so when families land on the Gold Coast, they can seamlessly slip into their new lifestyles. In doing so, Sarah has quickly built a black book of Gold Coast businesses. She says she’s helped clients settle into homes along the beachfront, canals and hinterland like the one pictured above. Set right on the Nerang River, it boasts four acres, its own boat mooring and tennis court. Once they have their home purchased, she helps them to set it up. The first-stop for Sarah’s home styling is Biku Furniture and Homewares where she finds high quality and luxury finishes. Locally owned, the team at Biku won’t stop at anything to help Sarah find the perfect piece. If it’s not on the shop floor, they’ll help her source or design something special.
Sarah’s favourite launching points for home styling is artwork. She loves large, abstract works by local artist Tania Blanchard (artwork pictured above). Sarah says they make a strong impact and compliment almost every design aesthetic. Her help settling people into their new lifestyles doesn’t stop there. As a personal concierge she always recommends her favourite hair and beauty salons such as Allana Carson at Cosmetic Injectables at Salt. Alana can conduct home visits when privacy is required. For hair, Sarah sends clients to Oscar Oscar at Pacific Fair for their luxury additions like a massage on arrival and a private retreat for relaxation at the basin. If Sarah’s managing an event or photo shoot for a client and they want to look fabulous, she always sends them to Tori Tye Hair and Make-Up. Visit www.theresidencegc.com to find out more.
Above: Artwork by taniablanchardcreative.com Left: Furniture by biku.com.au, waterfront home for sale by atrealty.com.au/ larrybrown/ and Tash Bercich at solacebrokerage.com.au. Sarah styled by cosmeticinjectablesatsalt.com.au, toritye.com. au and oscaroscar.com.au/salons/broadbeach. Photography by gracelilyvisuals.com. @the_ residence_gc
theresidencegc.com
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UPPER NOTCH CLUB Supporting small Australian businesses that value craftsmanship, beauty and function, Upper Notch Club curates collections to suit your lifestyle. Say hello to unique, stylish gifts that inspire pictureperfect picnics, exploring the beach with the kids, and nurture precious me-time. @uppernotchclub
uppernotchclub.com
INTERIOR DESIGN COURSE Learn from industry leaders. Self-paced course by distance learning. Postal and online options available. Call 1800 071 100
OUTSIDE IN Bring the outside in with our collections of original travel prints. From European Summers to tropical beaches of South-East Asia, we have a print to suit your space. Sustainability is important so we’re planting one tree for every print purchased. Featured print is ‘Spritz Spot’.
@outsidein.co
TheInteriorDesign Academy.com
outsidein-co.com
MCMULLIN & CO.
T O A D VE R T IS E CO NTACT 130 0 139 305 O R VO G UE LI VI NG @ N E W S LI FE M E DI A .CO M . A U
McMullin & co. is our furniture, homewares and design studio founded on the simple principle of balancing modern simplicity and uncompromising detail. We believe that everyone deserves to have beautiful interiors that are attainable and designed to exude a sense of effortless luxury.
@mcmullinandco
www.mcmullinandco.com
VLast look SHOP
Love blossoms The wonder of a bud flourishing is expressed in the creation of this multifaceted seat where a sinuous structure delights on first sight. By Virginia Jen Photographed by James Tolich Styled by Joseph Gardner When Louis Vuitton, long-time lauded purveyor of refined luxury, stepped into the realm of the home with its Objets Nomades collection a few years ago, traditional craftsmanship, heritage and timeless style were at the core of the offering. The maison turned to innovative Japanese artist and designer Tokujin Yoshioka — whose recent work includes a pair of pandemicimpacted projects: designing the Tokyo 2021 Olympic lantern and cauldron, and a free template to create a face shield — to produce the Blossom stool. Inspired by the fashion maison’s petal monogram, four ash plywood ‘petals’ lined with buttersoft calfskin seemingly fold into one another in a transfixing swirl, turning a simple stool into a beguiling objet d’art sitting prettily on its own. The form emulates that of a bud coming into bloom, capturing the transformative magic of Mother Nature with quiet elevated elegance. Asked upon the Blossom’s release what was factored in first — form or function — during the design process, Yoshioka says: “Neither. I always try to invent something beyond forms, and that is universal and timeless.” VL THI S PAGE
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Blossom stools by Tokujin Yoshioka, $17,000 each; loafers, $1750; and skirt, $5250, all from Louis Vuitton; louisvuitton.com
vogueliving.com.au
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