Name: Elsa Mehary
Occupation: Designer behind the jewelry line, Mehary, and art director
The space: A large two-bedroom brownstone storefront in Brooklyn, New York City

Elsa Mehary is the kind of girl who doesn’t let overweight luggage or small air cabins stand in her way when it comes to scoring a good apartment find. “I can remember being 19-years-old and hand carrying a large glass lantern from Cairo back on the plane because it was too fragile to pack in my luggage,” she says of one of the many conversation-starting details in her impressively curated pad. “But now, the same lamp can be found in SoHo or a store like West Elm, imported for half the price and minus the story of adventure in an intricate maze of bazaars,” she adds.

Elsa has lived in her unusually large apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn for 15 years and she’s spent that time filling the place with carefully chosen figures and textiles she’s picked up traveling to places such as Bali, India and Tulum. Many people talk about wanting to create a home that transports a person somewhere else. But Elsa has actually pulled it off. “I think of my apartment as a serene oasis in the center of chaos,” she says.

She’s achieved an overall look and feeling of zen through a mix of spiritual figures and colors that she found in near and far-flung places. There’s the gold head of Buddha she found in Chinatown: “It’s really heavy but I love the serenity it brings to the space.” And an ornate cross that lies next to a box of Bach flower remedies imported from Israel. “I was born in Ethiopia and plan on returning there this year to visit all the amazing churches built into the ground in Lalibela. The cross is a traditional Orthodox relic from Addis Adabaa originally owned by my mom,” she explains.

“The look of my apartment is constantly changing,” Elsa admits. But the sense of calm never changes. “I incorporate the feng shi principles in determining location of color throughout the house.”

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond persevered through a volatile housing market, months of renovations and a sinking bathroom ceiling to get to her dream apartment. The end result is a labor of love that reflects her African-influenced style.

Name: Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
Occupation: Novelist and Senior Manager at Bluefly
The space: A renovated one bedroom in Queens, New York City









“It’s a pre-war place with an Eighties sensibility and a bit of a Seventies look – but it’s not tacky,” says first-time homeowner Brew-Hammond of her place in Jackson Heights. The author of “Powder Necklace,” a novel loosely based on her experiences in a Ghanaian boarding school, was originally looking for a swanky, modern space. But after the market tanked she was forced to make some compromises.

“I’m a bit of a princess, so I wanted everything in my apartment to be perfect the day I moved in,” she admits.

Instead it took her six to eight months to find a fixer-upper that fit her budget. “It had these beautiful wood floors that needed cleaning and a kitchen and bathroom that completely needed gutting. Oh and the bathroom ceiling caved in,” she says.
So she called in a contractor and then set about personalizing her place with details that reflect her Ghanaian heritage: wooden soldiers that she bought during a visit to Africa (“the customs guards at JFK airport scanned them six or seven times and I was like, ‘There’s no cocaine’,”), a hand painted Lucas Risé cabinet and colorful rugs. “I’m glad I was forced to take my time because now I’ve got what I want on an affordable budget. And every time I walk into my apartment, I smile and say to myself, ‘This is my place.’”

-photos by Kashish das Shrestha

Not counting the openings I caught during New York Fashion Week, I’ve missed out on the bulk of fall’s art happenings, including Frieze, due to my beginning graduate school. But the two openings I was most disappointed to miss include my husband’s and that of family friend Rashaad Newsome. About a year ago, Rashaad came over to London to learn the practice of heraldry and we had a chance to talk about it over dinner afterwards. So it’s interesting to see the end result of all that preparation, which marries the centuries old craft with contemporary hip hop imagery and a level of ornamentation that is right in line with the current mood in fashion (ornate brooches, rhinestone embellishments, the list goes on.) His collages end up being completely maximal in a Nicki Minaj meets aw ‘11 Dolce & Gabbana meets Elizabethan decorative arts kind of way.

Luella Lane and Will Lebens’s London flat is steeped in jaw dropping family history. Add the couple’s eclectic contemporary style and you’ve got a home that combines the best of several worlds.



Names: Luella Lane and Will Lebens
Occupation: European Style Manager of Urban Outfitters Europe and Managing Director of Airlock, respectively
The space: A large two-bedroom loft in Shoreditch, London

Most of us buy copies of historic, worldly looking artifacts from mass market places like Crate & Barrel or Zara Home. But in Luella Lane and Will Lebens’s flat, the coronation chairs that their two-year-old daughter, Mila, is playing under, are real (from Queen Elizabeth II’s, to be exact.) When Lane says it took “three generations” to decorate her place, she means it. Her grandfather, Sir Peter Smithers, was a former member of Parliament, famous botanist and the spy who inspired Ian Fleming’s most famous character, “James Bond.” And her grandmother, Lady Dojean Smithers, counted Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco among her friends.

Meanwhile, Lane, who art directs for Urban Outfitters, and Lebens, who runs an Emmy-winning digital agency, are over­achievers in the creative department. They marry their inherited family treasures such as antique Egyptian stools, vintage Louis Vuitton trunks and a Chinese table with a sharp mix of contemporary pieces that reflect their own unique taste, like the leather hares Lane bought for Lebens’s birthday to celebrate the coming arrival of their second daughter, who will be born in the year of the rabbit. “A lot of what we have has been passed down to us,” Lane says of her family’s Wes Anderson film-worthy background. “But otherwise, we just pick up bits and pieces from our travels. Mainly, anything that’s unique and has a story or is handmade,” she says. “It’s great having all of these amazing things, but also a responsibility. I won’t know how to pack it all up when we move!”















Photo credit: Nick Cunard and Shiraz Ksaiba

“It’s just cool for a home to have a little bit of nature indoors. How lovely is it to open your eyes in the morning and the first thing you see is this beautiful flower beside your bed?” asks Kathleen Hyppolite, who runs the New York-based floral design company, Kat Flower. We’re talking about how trendy floral arranging has become among twenty- and thirtysomethings these past two years, a movement we jokingly call a “petal-ution.” It may sound slightly Martha Stewart in a middle-aged, full-time, stay-at-home mom kind of way. But in actuality, the trend is being fueled by fashion lovers, hipsters and arty types the world over who are tricking out their flats with carefully curated arrangements made with their own thorn-pricked hands. Basically, the kinds of people you’d imagine spending their mornings nursing a hangover after a swanky night out, rather than rolling out of bed to trek to a flower market. “I think it’s a result of the flower blogs that have become so popular,” Hyppolite says of sites such as her own, Kat flower The Little Flower School and Lotte and Bloom. They’ve elevated the idea of flowers from being merely something that you grab from the grocery store and stick in a vase at home, to an accessory that can really personalize your space in as meaningful a way as a great painting. Hyppolite gives us a little workshop.

Step One
“When you bring flowers home, the first thing you should do is clean the vessel. And a vessel doesn’t have to be a vase, you can use a water glass, old spaghetti jars, a tiny little votive—anything that can hold water,” Hyppolite says.



Step Two
“As a designer, it drives me crazy when I see people who just stick cut flowers into water without doing anything to them. As soon as you cut a flower from its natural source, the earth, it’s on suicide watch,” she explains. “So you need to do a series of small steps to prolong its life. That said, remove any foliage on the stem that is below the water line in the vessel because the foliage can introduce bacteria into the water. You don’t want to have leaves floating around in there. Keep the leaves around the top of the blooms. They are on the flower for a reason. And be sure to cut the stem on an angle. This gives the stem the best possible chance to drink and flourish.”



Step Three
“If you can wear clothes, you can arrange flowers. Approach it in the same way,” she says. “For example, you can do interesting things by mixing flowers of varying texture. A big bloom can look pretty with something more vine-y. This makes the flowers look more distinct. You can see the difference in texture between a flower like a dahlia and something like cockscomb.”

Step Four
“When it comes to the shape of the arrangement itself. I don’t believe that there is necessarily a wrong way to do this,” she says. “It’s hard to mess it up. Just trust your instincts and be sure to place the flowers in the vessel at an angle in order to maximize the flower’s potential to drink.”



And ta da!
“Don’t forget to switch out the water every day. If it begins to look cloudy, change it immediately because this will prolong the life of the flowers.”

Gigi Guerra (one of my original girl crushes from the Jane magazine days) spent a chunk of her career traveling the globe in search of cool, little-known shops. Now, in her current role with the clothing line, Madewell, she gets to stay in one place. But the two-bedroom she shares with her boyfriend Eddie Volchko, still reveals her wanderlust.

Names: Gigi Guerra and Eddie Volchko
Occupation: Marketing Director of Madewell and CFO of Badgley Mischka, respectively
The space: A bright one-bedroom in Lower Manhattan

When Guerra and Volchko moved in together earlier this summer, you could say it was a union made in shelter heaven. Their stuff — her painted door by the NY graffiti artist Neck Face and the Banksy print Volchko scored early in the mega street artist’s career, for example — blended that seamlessly together. “We both have a lot of affordable, re-­purposed found objects. So it’s either someone else’s memories or our own,” Guerra says of pieces like a workbench once used by Volchko’s grandfather that they turned into a coffee table. Her own memories surface in the hyper-colorful items from her travels: Bed throws from London’s Brick Lane and Tunisia or an old department store sign from Montreal. “You don’t have to spend a ton to decorate,” she says.


















Photo credit: Kashish das Shrestha

Swedish interior design blogging extraordinaire Anna-Malin A-Lindgren has a knack for creating unique decorative items with a cool edge. She’s made everything from her dining table to the throw pillows on her sofa. She lets us into her crafty abode.

Name: Anna-Malin Lindgren
Occupation: Teacher and photographer. But she’s most known for her popular shelter blog, Helt Enkelt
The space: An airy four-bedroom house that has a clean Scandinavian sensibility with a rustic, feminine twist.
The city: Helsinborg, Sweden



“[My husband, sons and I] have been living in our new house for three and a half years now but I’m at a point where I feel it’s time for something new. I dream of a house in the country, preferably a place we can renovate and I can start a small shop or café.”




“I love to re-decorate. I sometimes change the look of our home several times a month. It’s in a constant state of change and I truly believe I’m never going to consider it finished.”

Spruce up your outdoor living with a few statement accessories that pop. These versatile pieces will work in any space, whether you’ve got a tiny terrace, compact rooftop garden or palatial backyard.

(l-r): Missoni Sdraio deck chair, Ikea Borrby lamp, Egg bird feeders, Urban 650 firepit

-Richard Peckett

Before they moved in together over ten years ago, the New York-based contemporary art duo Lovett/Codagnone, had completely different tastes. Alessandro Codagnone preferred a clean and sparse aesthetic, while John Lovett liked things crowded and busy. Together, they’ve built a look they like to call “minimal, but eclectic” in a spacious glove factory-turned loft. The duo let us snoop around their West Village home.

-photos by Kashish das Shrestha