As if Kelly Hoppen didn’t have enough on her plate.
Well, actually, the plates won’t show up until this fall, courtesy of Wedgwood. More immediate was the 44-year-old top British designer’s launch of a 40-piece furniture collection for Century that reflects the East-meets-West modern style she has made famous. The collection was introduced in April at the High Point Home Furnishings Market in High Point, N.C.
Just six months ago, Hoppen basked in the celebration honoring the debut of her shops in Bergdorf Goodman and select Neiman Marcus stores. The shops are a microcosm of her trendy Fulham Road boutique in London, an outlet for her products – which include new rugs, bedding, fabrics, paints and, in the pipeline, lighting – as well as antiques and her fifth coffee-table book, “Kelly Hoppen Style: The Golden Rules of Design” (Bulfinch, $40).
As home design trends have shifted to more simple lifestyles, Hoppen’s timing couldn’t be better. She epitomizes a chic, modern look that’s uncluttered but not too minimal. Hoppen does it by fusing European vintage classics and assertive pieces with streamlined Asian aesthetics of her own conception.
Fond of marrying cheap and posh objects to create tension, Hoppen sets it all in the context of a serene and, as she puts it, “chilled-out” space.
Known as the queen of taupe, her signature neutral palette is punctuated by dark woods such as the almost black African wenge, fleshed out by textural fabrics such as linen, silk, silk mohair, velvet, suede and leathers. She’s keen on materials such as shell, silver, mother of pearl and organic elements that include pussy willows, calla lilies, grasses and mosses.
With exposure on international television and a place on Architectural Digest’s list of the top 100 designers, she’s firmly situated on the design radar.
Soon she hopes to hit the TV airwaves in the United States with a syndicated import of a show inspired by a one-week master class in interior design for 14 students that she teaches in London. Design projects in 29 countries have her jetting to France, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, New Zealand and the United States.
“Traveling, that’s the killer,” she says, wearily.
Still, her mantra is, “Bring it on.” After all, she trained for this lifestyle. Just a few years ago, she hired a famous New York lifestyle coach to groom her for the next giant leap.
She won’t boast about celebrity clients, but she has them: Gwyneth Paltrow, Melanie Griffith, Elton John and Sarah Ferguson. Until now, the bulk of her business (she employs 40 people), estimated in double-digit millions, has been interior design, including commercial projects such as the first-class cabins of British Airways as well as hotels, restaurants, private yachts and homes.
Her holistic modus operandi for designing homes embraces more than the specification and placement of furnishings. She picks the flowers (architectural blooms such as calla lilies, orchids and tulips), the candles and scents, the chocolates in a bowl, and even the music. She produced a lifestyle CD on the EMI label, a dinner party mix that has been described as funky, hypnotic and mood enhancing.
She calls herself a “decotherapist,” and her perhaps unorthodox approach to psyching out her clients’ tastes is thorough.
“I have to live and breathe the place,” she says. Besides handing out a 50- to 100-page detailed questionnaire about each homeowner’s lifestyle, Hoppen actually moves in for three days.
“I see how they interact, eat breakfast with their kids, do their homework. You can’t design a home without knowing that. I’m lucky the people I’m designing for take it as seriously,” she says.
“You’re changing people’s lives. Your home is your nucleus, where you wake up in the morning, where you go to sleep at night. You can talk about lines and harmony, but the magic is in getting into people’s heads.”
Hoppen jumped into her profession at age 16 without formal training except for a five-week design course. Born in South Africa, she and her family moved to England when she was 2. Her mother, Stephanie Hoppen, is a well-known design author and art dealer with a prestigious gallery in London. Hoppen says her upbringing was amazingly bohemian.
Early on, Hoppen demonstrated flair. At age 10 she decorated a room with chocolate felt walls punctuated with chrome strips and creamy shag carpeting. A family friend, a grand prix race-
car driver, was her first client. She recalls that kitchen design as “absolutely ghastly” but with some amazing elements. Her youthful confidence never faded.
The purchase of an antique Chinese trunk on Portobello Road when she was 20 changed the way she designs and lives. “It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” she says. “I put it next to a calico sofa and thought, ‘This is it.’ I didn’t want to be chintzy, flowery, all those things” often associated with English style.
Her fan base in the United States stems from her defining “East Meets West: Global Design for Contemporary Interiors,” published in 1997 by Rizzoli and one of its most popular titles. If her overall design convictions have not wavered in 25 years, Hoppen has seen a “massive shift” in the way people have viewed their homes since Sept. 11, 2001.
“The home now is more important than anything else,” Hoppen says. “It has to work, which means comfort – for your dog, your cat, your children, your lovers, your friends.”
People are no longer interested in “the wow factor” of perfect show houses, Hoppen says, insisting that she’s selling attainable style, even when it comes to luxury.
“It has nothing to do with gold or marble. Luxury is coming home and feeling you’re in the best place ever (whether it’s) bohemian, minimalist, chintzy – whatever rocks your world,” she says.
Hoppen style, however, has its price. For $40, shoppers might snap up a small pot, and $175 will buy a giant candle. Chairs run about $3,000, and you can expect to pay about $4,350 for a credenza.
“I’m not dictating styles,” says Hoppen, a huge admirer of Ralph Lauren. “I’m interpreting, telling people, this is a possibility. It’s European, eclectic. I think people are thirsty for that,” she says.
“I want to be remembered as a person who brought a style of living. It’s not really about what color your cushions are. It’s an organic process, creating a space that moves and changes. It’s about looking for real harmony,” she says. “It’s a dream that’s real.”
