Multi-hyphenate Suki Waterhouse is known for her wide-ranging artistic interests, from her start in fashion design to her work as an actor in Daisy Jones & the Six, in which she showed off her musical chops. It makes sense, then, that her home reflects her creative life and unique style. In fact, we spoke to the designer behind the eclectic Notting Hill apartment to find out how it all came together.
'She wanted someone to just come in and decorate it and add some character, add to the comfort levels,' says Izzy Hamilton-Fairley, London-based designer and owner of IHF Interiors. 'Suki was so fun to work for because she has amazing style anyway. I don't think she really knew what she wanted or what she was expecting, but she was great because she's so open to adding color and texture.'
Though the apartment was designed during the pandemic, the space feels as fresh and exciting today as it did upon completion. With a mix of vintage and modern furnishings, colorful accents, and plenty of patterns, the home evokes a sophisticated version of dopamine decor before it was even known as such.
Hamilton-Fairley explains that when she took on the job, the apartment was 'livable but not decorated.' She says that to kick off the design process, they looked to the ground for inspiration.
'The main living area, which is open plan living-dining-kitchen, she had this rug that I absolutely love. It's orange and purple and brown – that was pretty much one of the only things she already had, so that was our springboard for colors in that main room.'
From there, she mixed mid-century modern pieces in wood finishes, glass tableware, and metallic accents with pops of orange, red, and pink throughout the home. It's a delightful blend of unexpected hues and textures around every corner.
'I absolutely love that look when people walk into a room and they think none of this should work together, but it all does,' Hamilton-Fairley explains. 'It's bold prints and different scales and different portions and different colors, but actually, when it all goes together, it just works.'
She also built around found items, for example, some cow-print armchairs that Waterhouse found.
Hamilton-Fairley says that both her and Waterhouse delighted in the hunt for vintage and antique pieces, with a mix of online and in-person shopping.
'We did a lot [of sourcing] from Vinterior and 1stDibs,' she says. 'It was just after COVID, but we couldn't physically go shopping at the beginning. As the project progressed, she's in Notting Hill, so it's like the dream area for antique shopping. Suki loved and had a massive interest in so she did a bit herself too which was quite fun and then she'd send me stuff.'
She loves the bathtub, which Waterhouse had prior to her stepping in to decorate, but her personal favorite finds are some opulent chandeliers, which bring an air of femininity to the space.
'The chandeliers in both the dressing room and the master bedroom were both 1stDibs, and they were kind of a risk because obviously when you're buying things like that online, you don't 100% know what's coming. But I love them in the room and it just adds such a sense of glamour and sort of boudoir... Suki really wanted her bedroom and bathroom to be quite boudoir-esque, to be very feminine and glamorous, and I think the chandeliers really helped add that element.'
Shop the Suki Waterhouse-inspired edit
Lastly, Hamilton-Fairley's tip for sourcing great vintage pieces? Go in with a vague idea of desired items, then search accordingly.
'No one has the days, the weeks, the months to scroll through all these sites because they're just too big,' she says. 'I think you have to know roughly the type of thing you want, and then you can search for it because otherwise it's literally a bottomless pit.' We're taking these tips to our favorite antique emporium and shopping the Waterhouse way.
