Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2016 i Vogue Living

Kasia Gatkowska A long-time resident of Amsterdam, Polish-born interiors photographer and former designer Gatkowska loves what she does. “Every location I work on feels like a clean slate,” she says. The story on Jean-Philippe Demeyer’s Belgian home (page 114) was particularly inspiring: “When I arrived at the location, a moated medieval manor close to Bruges, I felt transported in time. I was charmed by the way Demeyer had transformed the place into a contemporary (and bit eccentric) house without destroying the soul of it.” John Laurie As an international photographer who regularly crosses the globe to capture lifestyle shots for high-profile magazines, Melbourne-based Laurie was thrilled to only cross town to shoot Sonia Payes for ‘Face Value’ (page 64) and the profile on Elise Cakebread (page 73). “Meeting the two…

Cassina ‘Rio’ table by CHARLOTTE PERRIAND, $22,710, from Cult. STEPHEN ORMANDY sculpture from Olsen Irwin. Volcanic jar, $90, ‘Earth’ bowls, from $90 each, and liquid pebble ornaments in brass, from $80 each; all from DINOSAUR DESIGNS. Details, last pages.…

Shot at the residence of Torsten Grimme, co-owner of Kontor 255.…

ON A STINKING HOT Melbourne day, when propriety is allowed to slip, artist Sonia Payes plays the punctilious host. She fusses around in the kitchen of her Melbourne studio — a late 19th-century structure steeped in the history of its Prahran locale — furnishing shots of good espresso and the full spread of print media relating to previous shows. “Is that aircon too cold, are you feeling a bit hungry?” she asks, fluffing out her luxuriant black mane while worrying about the provision of food. “Sorry, it’s my Jewish mama coming out.” And the role of “mama”, as conversation and art concepts later reveal, is the wellspring of her work — mother as nature, nurturer, procreator and matriarchal figurehead, a small effigy of which she picks up from a kitchen…

“All the rich and beautiful people were there… and I took pictures” MY DESIGN EPIPHANY, so to speak, took place when I was eight. It was the late 1970s and my greatgrandparents were visiting from the South of France with photos of their apartment, nestled in the hills behind Cannes. Obviously I’d never seen anything like it — think Mies van der Rohe meets To Catch a Thief. Amid the odd antique piece, streamlined, almost futuristic furniture in highly polished metals and chocolate-brown suede seemed to float over travertine floors, framed by geraniumclad views of the French Riviera. Fast-forward three decades and I would discover the identity of the creator of such dazzling furniture: famed Italian photographer and designer Willy Rizzo. Born in Naples in 1928 but relocating to France…

“She was somebody with a RARE KIND OF COURAGE. It was not a constructed courage, but an inevitable courage; she was just made that way. It was an almost PHYSICAL THING.” — architect Rem Koolhaas BORN A SUNNI MUSLIM in Baghdad, schooled by Roman Catholic nuns in Switzerland, tertiary-educated at the American University of Beirut, and mentored by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and Greek architect Elia Zenghelis at the Architecture Association (AA) in London, Zaha Hadid came to fame through a chaos of cultures. Accordingly, her buildings were bereft of the biases of Western Modernism and men. She was a self-determining master of mega-structural processes who dipped into all design sectors while shaping a brave new world and shaking up the boys’ club. She translated Russian Suprematism into Einsteinian space…

I LOVED THE SYNERGY of selling my Limoges porcelain pieces back to the French at Le Bon Marché in Paris,” says Shelley Simpson, director and designer of Mud Australia, a brand whose organic-shaped table and cookware has roots in Sydney but a worldwide reach. With stores in Sydney, Melbourne, New York and London, and international stockists from Amsterdam to Chicago, Toronto to Zurich, Simpson’s “beautiful but functional” pieces can be found gracing the tables of Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Philippe Starck and even our own Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Bill Granger and Donna Hay were early fans; Sydney chef Guillaume Brahimi uses custom-made versions in his Paddington restaurant. Simpson’s love of ceramics started 22 years ago, when a friend she was house-sharing with encouraged her to give…

IN A WORLD OF computer-aided design and digital printing, British designer Marthe Armitage still painstakingly draws, cuts and block-prints all her wallpapers by hand. The octogenarian, who has just worked on a limited-edition collection for Jo Malone London, has always proved the exception to the rule. Armitage began designing in the mid 1950s while her children were at school, but it wasn’t until just over a decade ago that her prints gleaned sought-after status. “Everything had been very sparse and minimal and then suddenly people were interested in pattern,” says Armitage over tea at the Jo Malone London headquarters in Marylebone. Among those interested were designer Ilse Crawford and New York decorator Miles Redd — and Armitage even recalls model Stella Tennant and actress Tilda Swinton sauntering up the garden…

Perched above the harbour in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, this home began life in the 1920s as a Masonic lodge. Now it’s a retreat of a different sort for its owners, fashion designer Collette Dinnigan, and her husband, hotelier Bradley Cocks. With marble floors, pillars and classical architraves, Dinnigan’s “stronghold” has all the solidity its origins would suggest, but she has softened it with an alluring range of more feminine furniture and finishes. After living in Sydney’s Paddington for 13 years, the designer wanted a sea change. “I have always loved this area,” she says. “It’s like a fishing village, with a sense of community, and it offered many advantages for our two children [Estella, 11, and Hunter, 3]. You feel like you’re on holiday — sadly, though, I never am.”…

“Curved walls make the spaces flow, add softness and help pick up the view” — architect Brian Bass Sea and sky meld into one when viewed through the three-metre-high sliding glass that fronts this clifftop aerie with bird’s-eye panoramas. The margins between the house and its setting are similarly blurred, the light-washed interiors by designers Hare & Klein breathing in the everchanging seascape beyond. But while fluid and dynamic, the space also owes a debt to Sydney’s eastern suburbs, which stretch out behind. Combining coastal cool with city sophistication, this may be a beach home, but it’s no beach house. The site was shamelessly squandered by the latter when the owners bought it 10 years ago. But beauty lay beyond the weather-beaten bungalow. “There was something magical about the view,”…

A view of the central garden and exterior of Zaborin Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn in the northern province of Hokkaido The Japanese word zaborin means ‘a place among the trees to sit and forget’. That ethereal concept was the starting point for designer and photographer Shouya Grigg when he imagined a traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan, deep in a beautiful birch forest in the northern province of Hokkaido, near the popular ski resort of Niseko. Zaborin Ryokan is only a few months old but on first glimpse of it, through a road cut into a swathe of three-metre-high ice, it feels like it might have existed in the woods forever. Zaborin’s charcoal-black buildings, eaves laden with thick curtains of snow, emerge from the marshmallow clouds of white like a…

1. KEN DONE is my great love. His colour and optimism are quintessentially Australian, and I’ve always said he’s my professional idol. I got this painting, Christmas Reef, recently in Sydney. 2. VILLA E BY STUDIO KO Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier, founders of Studio KO, have become my close friends and collaborators. Last year they took me to Villa E, a monolithic desert compound in the mountains of Morocco. It’s a true feat of design magic, constructed from locally sourced Ourika stones. 3. THE POWER OF MAKE-BELIEVE I love creating worlds from my imagination. This is one of the reasons I love building sets for our commercials and films. 4. MY DOGS, FREEWAY AND DAYLESFORD They’re my BFFs (best furry friends). They come to work with me every day,…

THEY SAY THE BEST TIME to start thinking about your retirement is before the boss does, but if you are the boss presiding over a major architecture practice, it’s presumed you’ll just drop at your drawing board. “Not me,” says Charles Justin, founding co-director of architecture and interiors practice Synman Justin Bialek (SJB). “We introduced a mandatory retirement age at SJB as part of a succession plan. Psychologically, I was prepared for the next stage of life.” While he claims departure from the profession conclusive, what architect retires their passion? Think Philip Johnson, the Pritzker prize winner who, winding up practice at the age of 98, claimed his longevity was contingent on the chance to act out aggressions. Justin doesn’t miss the battles of building, but does miss the cerebral…

DESIGN BY TOKO is no ordinary Sydney graphic design practice. “We called it Design by Toko because we believe that design is always derived from conceptual thinking,” explains Michael Lugmayr, who founded the company with life and business partner Eva Dijkstra. “We like to think that we can design everything, so we get involved with architecture, we’re into exhibition design and even fashion.” Lugmayr and Dijkstra founded Design by Toko in 2001 in the Netherlands, where they were previously based. The word ‘toko’ comes from the many independently owned Indonesian shops in the Netherlands known as tokos, and now exists as a slang word meaning ‘independent business’. After visiting Australia on a two-week holiday, they decided to move themselves and their business here permanently. “We fell in love with Sydney,”…

There’s a ceramic white bear sunbathing on the sill of a Melbourne showroom that objectifies the brand identity of its business, Porcelain Bear. It’s an incidental, easily overlooked analogue for both the attributes of the company’s designer-directors and the base material with which they work. “Clearly we are bears,” says Gregory Bonasera, in beard-stroking acknowledgement that both he and his creative partner, Anthony Raymond, are hirsute and huggable. “But the polar bear is also the perfect metaphor for porcelain. He is white, robust and strong, an adaptable species that survives; both beautiful and fragile.” And adaptability in a fast-changing world has whipped the ‘Bears’ — makers of timeless ceramic lights and furniture — into a recent frenzy of renovation (the showroom’s switch to pitch), reintroduction (key pieces have been honed…

ENTERING MARK PATRICK’S just-opened homewares store, Born, located in the heart of a small coastal town north of Sydney, brings with it a delicious sense of discovery. Born — an acronym of the words borrowed, old, refurbished, new — is a magic culmination of a lifetime of travel and collecting for Patrick, the former MD of a Sydney-based PR and event company, who left the city for a sea change three years ago. When he first moved to the area, the eloquently spoken Patrick took up full-time gardening on his expansive one hectare block near MacMasters Beach in Kincumber. It didn’t take long, however, to lose his green thumb. “I grew bored,” he explains. “Nature kept beating me. After a year of work, a hailstorm came and 35 minutes later…

There are a number of things Jean-Philippe Demeyer can’t abide. The Flemish antique dealer and decorator dislikes strictly period interiors and houses that are too decorated. “Things should look natural, not too perfect,” he insists. Serene rooms make him anxious. He derides anything too trendy and steers clear of anything too serious. “You have to give things a twist,” he insists. He favours mixing pieces from different origins, and is a firm fan of the English country house look. “The English have a very eclectic way of staging things,” he notes. More than anything, he feels that a room should create an impact. “Just as there’s power-dressing, I like ‘power-furnishing’. You need to create a sense of surprise. There’s something of Alice in Wonderland in what I do.” A visit…

Ariel Ashe and Reinaldo Leandro’s initial encounter was not particularly auspicious. Shortly after meeting in the offices of the Manhattan design firm Pierce Allen back in 2004, Leandro invited Ashe to a play starring Mary-Louise Parker. To his surprise, she turned him down. “I thought she was the cool girl in the office,” he recalls. “She thought I was asking her out on a date.” Not only are they now firm friends, but Ashe + Leandro is one of New York’s hottest design firms, with a project list that includes a Manhattan loft and a house in London’s Belsize Park for Coldplay’s lead guitarist, Jonny Buckland; a 1930s Los Angeles hunting lodge for actress Jennifer Carpenter; a TriBeCa residence for Naomi Watts; and a home for comedian (and Ashe’s brother-in-law)…

“For the rooms, a dominant element was the handmade brick, which we left raw. For the other elements we used tinted rough plaster, solid timber floors, and cast terrazzo in the bathrooms. Unique pieces from contemporary Indonesian artists were also commissioned” — Takenouchi Webb designer Marc Webb WHEN A HOTEL OWNER REVEALS that the bricks comprising the floor and the walls of his new retreat are the realisation of a schoolboy’s dream, it’s clear that every aspect of the experience has been crafted with reverential consideration. Welcome to Katamama, in Bali’s Seminyak, the first hotel for Ronald Akili of Potato Head Beach Club fame. “I majored in entrepreneurial studies because I just wanted to create things,” says Akili. “Creativity is in my blood, and since I was young I’ve known…

Restaurateur Sam Christie leans across a dining table at The Apollo as he explains the kinship between Japanese and Greek cuisines. The delicacy of sushi appears to oppose everything we know of weighty Greek food — often laden with oregano, olive oil, lemon and feta — yet, says Christie, they do share a devotion to freshness, purity and traditional cooking techniques. “There’s a correlation between the simplicity and respect for produce in both Greek and Japanese food,” says the man behind The Apollo and Cho Cho San in Sydney, and Longrain in Sydney and Melbourne. “The quality of seafood, fruit and vegetables in Japan is incredible, and they have a tradition of barbecue, as we do in Greece.” Along with his business partner, chef Jonathan Barthelmess (they are both of…

Almost two decades ago, as a freelance writer living in London, I travelled to Australia to produce features for a British interiors publication. Working with legendary photographer Geoff Lung, we shot the Sydney home of gallerist Sarah Cottier and her husband, Ashley Barber, also a photographer. Geoff and I were captivated by the couple’s young daughter, Ruby, and took several portraits. One of those, of Ruby peering cheekily from behind a hot pink gerbera flower, made it to the cover of the esteemed British magazine. There’s a lovely continuity in the fact that these days Ruby Barber is a successful florist, based in Berlin and profiled in this issue (page 89). I like to think that gerbera was a portent of things to come. There’s similar serendipity in Jason Mowen’s…

PURE AND SIMPLE The innovative bin emptying mechanism drives out collected dust and debris with the push of the button, so there’s no need to get your hands dirty. As an added bonus, the Dyson Cinetic Big Ball’s bin capacity is 33 per cent larger than that of the previous generation of Dyson Cinetic barrel vacuums, which means even less work for you. SMOOTH MOVES Engineered to have a single stable resting point and low centre of gravity, the vacuums can right themselves if they fall over. The use of the ball instead of wheels means they can also turn on the spot and roll smoothly around furniture and other obstacles. POWER PLAY The use of Cinetic science, Dyson’s unique cyclone technology, means you get a highly efficient machine that…

WHEN ELTON JOHN BUYS ONE OF YOUR PAINTINGS during your first exhibition in Los Angeles, you must be doing something right. For Australian artist Jonathan Zawada, that 2010 purchase was a highlight, he says, that was “pretty hard to come back from”, but judging by the prodigious body of work he’s since become celebrated for — easily traversing the lines of design, contemporary art and product design — it was just the incentive he needed. The next year, Zawada and his wife, Annie, moved from Sydney to LA so he could focus on his art, which has evolved to cross a range of media, and delve into the collision of technology and nature. Zawada’s journey began in graphic design, working with major music and fashion labels. Over time, his creative…

IT MAY BE A NAME that preordains a career in the kitchen, but Elise Cakebread has left that business to her sister. “She is the gifted baker,” says the Melbourne craft practitioner who is mixing it up in a different medium — textile design — “but we both have practical skills and love the ‘making’.” Nesting in a small former bedroom at the front of a suburban house, where a magpie’s sensibility has spun lairy threads and a little plant matter into a cosy studio, Cakebread admits to acquiring those skills in a very circuitous way. “After majoring in art history and theatre studies at the University of Melbourne, I had all the critical thinking but no career path,” she says. “So I spent a lot of time travelling, dabbling…

BRUNO MOINARD: FROM LINE TOLIGHT by SERGE GLEIZES (Thames & Hudson, $90) Bruno Moinard is much more than a contemporary French architect working for his studio 4BI in Paris. An illustrator, painter and master of light, Moinard’s talent as a global designer of luxurious spaces is showcased here through captivating images by photographer Jacques Pépion as well as Moinard’s own drawings. His signature style of minimalist elegance is evident in the drawings of private mansions and commercial commissions, including more than 340 Cartier stores and the lavish Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris. FLORAL PATTERNS OF INDIA by HENRY WILSON (Thames & Hudson, $65) Beginning with a detailed history of floral symbolism and decoration in India, Henry Wilson’s book goes on to celebrate the beautiful motifs found in Indian fabrics, wallpaper, ceramics and architectural details.…

RUBY BARBER IS PHOTOGRAPHED EXCLUSIVELY FOR VOGUE LIVING IN BERLIN, GERMANY. SINCE CHILDHOOD, RUBY BARBER’S favourite book has been The Secret Garden, the classic children’s story by Frances Hodgson Burnett. “Of course I didn’t realise then how significant that book would become for me,” says Barber, sitting on a low couch in Berlin’s chic new concept boutique, The Store, at Soho House. Just four years after moving from Sydney to Germany’s creative capital, Barber oversees a flower studio in a light-filled corner of the sprawling space that also includes a popular cafe. The Store, in Berlin’s Mitte district, is scattered with racks of Ann Demeulemeester and The Row clothing as well as hand-carved wooden bowls, vintage design books, and Aesop products from Australia. Barber named her blossoming company Mary Lennox,…

LIBERTY LONDON’s covetable line of luxury accessories, created in 2013, is now available in DAVID JONES’ fagship stores and online nationally. Discover future classics such as the new ‘Neon’ capsule collection featuring the 1902 Art Nouveau ‘Iphis’ print, including this Mini Carnaby Cross Body Bag, $829. davidjones.com.au SPARKK has released its latest collaboration with London’s Victoria & Albert Museum — a range of textiles and wallcoverings designed by SASKIA RYSENBURY and inspired by illustrations from the 1900s by French entomologist Eugène Séguy; from $121. sparkk.com.au DESIGNS FOR GOOD “It’s not about perfection; it’s about idiosyncracies,” says designer Christian Louboutin of his new Africaba bag, $1825 (above), handmade by the women of Senegal charity La Maison Rose in collaboration with his long-time friend, Valérie Schlumberger. Ten per cent of the proceeds…

Style is meaningless. More and more, we try not to define ourselves aesthetically” — Paul Hecker Asa designer of a beautifully measured ‘emotionalism’ that elicits endless media, Hecker Guthrie has had its style dissected with a frequency and forensic enthusiasm that render its directors bored. “Style is meaningless,” says Paul Hecker. “More and more, we try not to define ourselves aesthetically. But I don’t know what you can say about our work that hasn’t already been said, darl’? Maybe mention longevity?” Alluding to a working relationship with his colleague and studio founding director, Hamish Guthrie, that stretches back to the late 1980s and to the Melbourne office of Daryl Jackson Architects, Hecker defines this meeting place as the hatching point of their “abstemious” design. “Daryl’s was the first architectural office…

Season to taste Swiss-born, London-based conceptual artist ROLF SACHS has turned his hand to restaurant interiors. At SALTZ, the latest incarnation of the old Garden Restaurant at Zurich’s Dolder Grand ‘city resort’, Sachs, with customary brio, has melded neon, felt, salt and rock to create a theatrical backdrop for chef PATRICK HETZ’s produce-driven, all-day menu. dolderhotelag.com TO DRINK Single minded It’s a quantum leap from organic yoghurt to single-malt whisky, but Australian businessman DAVID PRIOR, founder of the Five:am yoghurt brand, has taken giant steps with his rescue and revival of the venerable BLADNOCH distillery — the most southerly in Scotland. Last December, Bladnoch released a distinctively modern blend, Pure Scot, $250, while later this year will see the arrival of a fine single malt, seen here. bladnoch.com Let it…

WHAT TO PACK: Milan SARTORIAL ESSENTIALS FOR THE FASHION AND DESIGN CAPITAL. 1. GUCCI slippers, $775; gucci.com. 2. LA PRAIRIE Anti-Aging Rapid Response Booster, $360; laprairie.com.au. 3. DOLCE & GABBANA earrings, from $945; netaporter.com. 4. MARNI dress, $1859, and 5. PRADA sunglasses, $426; both netaporter.com. LISTEN: Be transported to this chic new establishment with the nu-soul sounds of musicians like Jordan Rakei and Hiatus Kaiyote. kittenjam.com DESTINATION: «Senato, Milan» Housed in a five-storey neo-classical building near Via Montenapoleone is new boutique hotel concept SENATO HOTEL MILANO. The fourth-generation owners of the once-private residence commissioned local artisans — including famboyant flower designer ROSALBA PICCINNI and masters of bespoke lighting BOTTEGA GADDA — to work with architect ALESSANDRO BIANCHI on a slick, modern design. Sydney-based future-soul music specialist KRISTIE NICOLAS (AKA KITTEN JAM) has curated five…