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Top Designers in the World Kelly Hoppen
“Each of the homes I have designed and lived in myself has been an ongoing exercise – an experiment, if you like – where I have tried to understand, more than anything else, how we see things, what gives us contentment and what we are really trying to achieve” Kelly Hoppen.
With her adoration for black rugs, black sofas and environments in interior design, Kelly Hoppen is one of our top designers this week. Her irreverent style at home mixed with our passion for statement pieces and decorations, makes Mrs. Hoppen one of our inspirations as interior designers in the world.
Kelly Hoppen is simply unstoppable. The South African born British designer has achieved iconic status designing houses, hotels, yachts and jets. Kelly has her own collection of paint, fabrics, rugs and ceramics. The Queen of Taupe is also an author of 7 design books.
She has moved her Interior Design Studio into a new West London loft. The impressive 6,400-square-foot space reveals the firm’s knack for combining elegant silhouettes and luxurious finishes in a signature neutral palette.
Located in an old warehouse, the open-plan space is the result of a gut renovation that highlights the loft’s double-height ceilings and provides ample space for Hoppen’s staff of 40 to spread out and take advantage of multiple communal areas. With plenty of display shelves throughout, the new studio will also be home to a showroom for Hoppen’s comprehensive e-commerce range of home wares.
Since the 1980s, Kelly Hoppen has become a household name in the style capitals of the world. Often infusing her Western interiors with objects chosen with an Eastern philosophy, she is a master of visual yin-yang. Characteristically, Hoppen works in a color scheme that blends neutral shades—soft taupe, rich chocolates and warm beiges—which she contrasts with dark wood that adds rigorous linearity to the lush softness of the fabric choices (suede, wool, linen, cashmere). Although her new home remains faithful to her trademark palette, refreshing shots of color vivify the space. When Hoppen’s grown children left home, the large apartment where she’d raised them suddenly seemed too large.
“I became highly frustrated that I never used my dining room or living room,” she recalls in her book Creating a home for the way you live “I ended up living in my bedroom and kitchen, and that drove me insane because it was such a waste.” After a brief sojourn in a small artist’s studio, she sought inspiration from the open-plan living of artists’ lofts. “I wanted to find an apartment of the kind you might find in Manhattan’s Meat Packing district—so whoever came to visit would think, Why is she living there? Then they’d walk through the door into this breathtaking space.”
“Learn to look not just with your eyes but with your heart. The truth is that style and taste are all relative. It is not a question whether or not someone has good taste. It is how something feels to the individual…Open your heart and mind to the world, and find the things that connect with you. How else will you know how to design your home?”
Check out our last Kelly Hoppen article and our Summer novelties.
