2021-03-01 Vogue Living

PHOTOGRAPHER: JACLYN LOCKE VLifeart design people

Mar/Apr 2021 49

F

o sH u eART

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

THIS PAGE milliner and artist Maryam Keyhani with
her son Rumi in the studio in her Berlin apartment.

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FUN

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One 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

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP 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.

“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

Visit 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 true-
blue 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 VLife
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

THIS PAGE, FROM LEFT “When I'm in a space that makes me feel
something, I try to deconstruct its potency”
in another view of the main
bedroom, stool from Studio ‹‹ Volunteering as an aid worker in Africa, Ghoniem a visual,” she explains with excited description of the
Henry Wilson; runner from next embedded deep in Maasai land in Kenya, living Kuwait penthouse scheme that identifies in the office
Kulchi; Mr Tallmadge (2015) in a manyata hut while assisting with the building as ‘Mies and Marni’ — shorthand for Sama and her
artwork by James King of schools. Then, came “an amazing year-long trip partner’s competing minimalism and maximalism.
from Becker Minty; framed through Sri Lanka, Spain, Vietnam — more
scarf by Kushana Bush from volunteer work — Cambodia and Laos,” she says, Ghoniem continues: “When I’m in a space that
Chee Soon & Fitzgerald. In adding that being a long-term itinerant in unstable makes me feel something, I try to deconstruct its
the guest bedroom, Indian territories soon made Sydney seem all the more potency but always come to the conclusion that it’s
quilt from Chee Soon appealing. So, she returned in 2008, beginning a not designed. It has literally grown, memory upon
& Fitzgerald; Tom Dixon band with her brother Ben. “My cousin plays the patron memory, and that’s what I truly love about
Swirl tables from Living violin, my best mate plays the drums and another interiors, when it reflects the wonders of a world
Edge; Roy lamp from VBO; you can’t control.” VL ysg.studio
photograph of Leonardo
Dicaprio by Hugh Stewart;
artwork by Mariusz Zdybalv
from The Vault Sydney.
Details, last pages.

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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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THESE PAGES, FROM LEFT 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.

Designing 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 63

“Women are empathetic
leaders, and people are
wanting a different kind
of leadership now” JODIE FRIED

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE

FROM TOP LEFT 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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VL

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‹‹ 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 ››

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‹‹ 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” JODIE FRIED

decompress from our creative THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP in the main
and visually stimulating worlds. bedroom, Oak Air bed from Ethnicraft, enquiries
to Trit House; bed linen from Cultiver; Kalahari
There’s a sense of slowness rug from Armadillo. In the children’s bedroom,
and mindfulness to life in
general at the moment that’s Perch bunk bed from Oeuf, enquiries to Kido
influenced the way that we run Store; bed linen from In Bed. Poppy, Leonardo
our business and also how we’re
designing. I feel excited to be a and Felix in the backyard. Details, last pages.
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

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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.

By Jason Mowen

THIS PAGE, BELOW Spiritually charged with sophistication,
France has long been a bastion of classical
Product and interior style. Louis XIV laid the cornerstone in the
designer, Andrée Putman. 17th-century and inspired a global mania
for all things French, from the gilded courts
of the ‘Greats’ — Peter, Catherine and Frederick — pair of 19th-century Egyptian Revival armchairs that
right through to the Maison Jansen-draped White once belonged to late 19th-century French actor Sarah
House of Jacqueline Kennedy. Few deviations were Bernhardt. Back-to-back either side of a square white
made from this blueprint of elegance although it column, the armchair composition reads like a sphinx
has not remained entirely static, as evidenced more and claw-clad sculpture, elegant but idiosyncratic
rather than any homage to the Ancien Régime. “It is
recently in the oeuvre through an impassioned choice of furniture, objects
of Andrée Putman. and spaces,” she continued, “and through the luxury of
the unexpected that houses are sometimes sublime.”
“Having been born
into what is convenient Despite the odd antique, Putman’s output was
to call the cradle of good resolutely contemporary across the course of her
taste, I felt very early career, as she settled her score with traditional ‘good’
on a desire to fight taste. Her repertoire encompassed the design of
against that old French products, including furniture and lighting, and an
conception of the ideal, array of sublime interiors from homes to hotels,
which seems much like Parisian boutiques and even the cabin of the
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 self-
respecting 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

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Concorde. There was also the odd left-field project, included the Lagerfeld Gallery (1998) and the
such as Karl Lagerfeld’s highly playful Memphis- refurbishment of Guerlain’s flagship store on the
laden apartment in Monte Carlo, which Putman Champs-Élysées (2005). Her daughter Olivia came
described as a “palace for a child”. on board as the studio’s art director in 2007, thus
cementing the legacy of Putman elegance and
While her output represented a clear break with restraint following her mother’s death in 2013.
the past, it was nevertheless imbued with the spirit
of Art Deco, another golden age of French design. If one closes their eyes and imagines her world,
The graceful weight and gentle curve of the Crescent they might see the office of the French minister of
Moon sofa is an example of Putman’s passion for the culture (1985), or the salon of the VII° Arrondissement
1920s style, as is her Jeune Bucheron coffee table Townhouse (2003). Both showcase the minimal lines
(both pieces were designed in 2003). Even her 1993 of her furniture design against the backdrop of
interior of the Concorde for Air France channelled elaborate 18th-century boiseries. “If we learn to
the understated luxury of the interwar years. There discriminate, to choose rather than to merely accept,
was concealed lighting, an aisle rug with zigzag French taste and style can become remarkably
border and crisp white covers over the arc of the fascinating,” she suggested back in the early ’80s.
headrests — although these were inspired by Japan, “And as the proverb states, the best soups are made
where Putman noticed them over the seats of taxis. in old pots. We will no longer be bound by old rules
that don’t work but we will not have lost the flavour
Born Andrée Aynard in Paris in 1925, Putman’s of our tastes.” VL studioputman.com
tour of duty as an artist began with music and later

Despite the odd antique, Putman’s output was
resolutely contemporary across her career

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 THIS PAGE, FROM ABOVE magazine publishing, and then, in 1958, a decade-
VON SCHAEWEN (OFFICE), BENOÎT FOUGEIROL (STADE DE FRANCE). long stint designing ‘domestic products’ — “creating
IMAGES COURTESY OF STUDIO PUTMAN the Paris office of the French beautiful things for nothing” — for the retail chain
minister of culture, Jack Prisunic, which seems to have sat somewhere between
Terence Conran’s Habitat and an American five-and-
Lang, designed by Putman. dime. She married art critic, collector and publisher
For the 10th anniversary Jacques Putman at around the same time.
of the Stade de France,
In 1978, no longer content with merely collecting
Putman won a competition the originals, Putman went out on a limb and
to redesign the VIP area, began to reissue to the mass market (with exclusive
which included an authorisation from the designers and their heirs)
800-metre long corridor. 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 71

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 Coleman to Rome to meet the design team and start work on the
appropriating luxury products boldly emblazoned project, which launched late last year in Fendi’s Miami store to
with logos and reworking them into everyday coincide with the annual international design fair Design Miami.
objects from folding chairs to pill bottles is not only “Sarah has already been repurposing our iconic prints so it invited
about elevating the ordinary but also about the opportunity to see how this creativity can evolve by collaborating.
injecting fun, playfulness and a left-field sense of Her work embodies our spirit of taking handcraft in new directions
irony into something familiar and overlooked. So — she can reimagine the conventional into the unexpected — and
what happens when the tables are turned and a at Fendi we have a strong heritage and ethos based around
luxury fashion house — in this case, Fendi — comes womanhood, so it’s always a pleasure to work with female talents.”
knocking with a request to rework one of its most popular handbags?
Manhattan-born-and-bred Coleman, who got her first job with Some of Fendi’s recent collaborations with female creatives
architect Peter Marino where she helped to design stores for Chanel include Cristina Celestino, Sabine Marcelis and Chiara Andreatti
before making art full-time in 2019, takes it all in her stride. “I’m so — all of whom have worked with the luxury house as part of an
in love with Fendi and have been looking through its history in my ongoing strategy to promote emerging talent at Design Miami. For
own way for such a long time, so going through the archives felt like Coleman, Fendi’s brief was simple — to be disruptive. “I felt very
saying hi to so many old friends,” she says. 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
Silvia Venturini Fendi, the brand’s creative director for the grain… I feel like she was telling me to leave any shyness at the
door and create outside of the box.”
accessories, mens and childrenswear, says she first discovered
The artist looked to the candy-pop colours of Miami’s art scene
Coleman via Instagram and called on the artist to create a capsule and the spirit of the 1970s as inspiration to reimagine three different
takes on the Peekaboo IseeU handbag, a design by Venturini Fendi
collection of limited-edition pieces because of her sense of creative that first launched in 2008 then refreshed with the IseeU iteration
last year. A warped and squeezed FF logo, manipulated via the
joy and “clever irony”. “We share this same approach to creativity so Instagram app FaceTune and applied with glow-in-the-dark electric
lime-coloured beads and embroidery, adorns one of the classic
of course I was naturally drawn to her work,” says Fendi who flew it-bags; another features an embossed logo in bright sunshine
yellow; a third applies brightly cheerful, multi-coloured FF thread
THIS PAGE an artistic embroidery onto a canvas background.
rendering of the
optical vertigo-effect In addition, Coleman plastered the facade of Fendi’s Miami
Fendi FF logo by artist boutique in a vertigo effect of the FF logo. She has also reupholstered
Sarah Coleman on furniture and cushions in the fabric from vintage designer bags
a Peekaboo bag in including a 1980s Fendi beach bag, and re-covered an acrylic zigzag
plaster and acrylic chair in a collage of images from the luxury fashion house’s archives.
paint. OPPOSITE PAGE “These memorable moments in Fendi history, especially the drama
Coleman, holding a of the 1980s, and the way the ’70s were recalled through the lens of
Fendi Baguette bag, the ’90s and early 2000s were very inspiring,” says Coleman. “Karl
in her New York City Lagerfeld’s [the late creative director of Fendi] process in general,
studio with inspiration the sketching and the collaging, sparked something in me. Even
for the collaborative though he was undoubtedly a genius, his unpretentious nature of
project with Fendi creation made his work more accessible to me, and directly inspired
for Design Miami. the collage process.” VL
@sarahcoleman fendi.com

72 vogueliving.com.au

Mar/Apr 2021 73

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AUSTRALIAN KITCHEN
AND BATHROOM SPECIAL

STYLE INSPIRATION FROM
BONDI TO BYRON BAY

ARTWORKS NUMBER 3 AND 4, POA. HAIR AND MAKE-UP: ANDREA BLACK My parents came to Australia from South Korea in the late VLife
1970s. My mother passed away when I was 19. They didn’t
want me to know anything of their experience. I realised ART
how ignorant I was of their background when as a child
I asked my mother, “How was the boat, coming to Australia?” Quiet
and she looked at me blankly and said, “We came on Cathay Pacific.” power

I studied law and worked briefly as a solicitor. That’s another part of the Sydney-based artist and former
immigrant story. If you get the marks at school then it’s almost expected that you fashion designer Vicki Lee instils her
study medicine or law — I didn’t feel I had an option. But my earliest memories are trademark sense of fluidity, motion
of making art. I remember as a child making a mural in different colours with my and fragility into a collection of
hands on a wall of my room and I never got in trouble for it. works inspired by her late mother.

I’m self-taught. I’ve contemplated going to art school but I don’t think I’m ever As told to Verity Magdalino
going to be a very good technical painter because I don’t have the patience. For me, Photographed by Ted O’Donnell
it’s not about technicality but more about creative expression and feeling.
Mar/Apr 2021 75
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

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.

PHOTOGRAPHER: MAGNUS MÅRDING

VLivinghomes

Mar/Apr 2021 77

THESE PAGES 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.

78 vogueliving.com.au

KindredsoulsSofia 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

Mar/Apr 2021 79

THESE PAGES, FROM LEFT 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.





THESE PAGES 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.

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

Y 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-of-
the-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

84 vogueliving.com.au

THIS PAGE 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. OPPOSITE PAGE 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.

THESE PAGES 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.



THESE PAGES, FROM LEFT the view from the living room, overlooking the sea. In the guest
bathroom, calacatta marble double vanity; tapware from Dornbracht. Details, last pages.



State

of MIND
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

90 vogueliving.com.au

THIS 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. OPPOSITE PAGE creative
director Valentina Guidi Ottobri in the kitchen. Details, last pages.

Mar/Apr 2021 91



here is something innately comforting about a curve. That gentle and organic THIS PAGE in the hallway,
concave, perhaps realised in a body, structure or sculpture, is intimate, in the central concrete
inviting and pleasing to the eye. Curves have intrigued Valentina Guidi module, sculptures and
Ottobri for as long as she can remember. “I’ve always found female bodies talismans, a mix of
very interesting and beautiful. My grandmother used to have this Fernando ceramic, raffia and
Botero painting at home and I remember that I was fascinated by the terracotta pieces,
all made in Florence,
T curves,” Ottobri says. So it comes as no surprise that sensuous lines have including some by
a presence in Ottobri’s home and gallery space in her beloved hometown and Antonio Di Tommaso.
capital of Italy’s Tuscan region, Florence. OPPOSITE PAGE in

A fiercely proud Florentine native, Ottobri’s curiosity with art and aesthetics has led to her another view of the living
becoming a curator and creative director of art and design. After seven years with luxury retailer area, 1970s leather sofa;
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 The Triumph of
connections between creatives through collaboration and community. To that end, she has formed Amphitrite (on wall)
her own collective, VGO Associates, which brings together all of these facets. “VGO Associates was and Poseidon and Thusa
born with the aim of creating ‘functional sculptures’ that emphasise the essence of the object itself ceramic plates (on table)
rather than hedonism, aesthetics or style, to give life and [a sense of] counterculture,” says Ottobri. by Simon Miller for
“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 VGO Associates;
time-honoured regional skills. “We think that in addition to techniques and materials, what papier-mâché
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 chandelier from
illuminated and sculptural approach to the project. In this vision, the artistic message that design VGO Associates.
offers can be as important as that of a work of art.”
AD DI TI O NAL TE X T: MARZ I A NI CO LI N I
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

Mar/Apr 2021 93



THIS PAGE 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. OPPOSITE
PAGE a view of the kitchen from the central module.