Above: in the kitchen
wearing jacquard dress,
£2,110, ChloéST Y LE
118 | HARPER’S BAZAAR | November 2019
painting and drawing
in my room, and they
allowed me to choose
my own path.’
After studying at
Central Saint Martins,
she moved to Paris in 1997 to attend the
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts,
under the tutelage of the Italian sculptor
Giuseppe Penone. ‘Whenever I go back to
Paris there’s a part of me that feels so happy
and proud – it’s a magical place,’ she says. In
2003, after illustrating her friend Sophie
Dahl’s first book, The Man with the Dancing
Eyes, she became a household name, and
three years later she was commissioned
by Christopher Bailey, then the creative
director of Burberry, to make a dress using
her painted clothes pegs. ‘I remember
arriving at their smart offices with seven
suitcases of pegs and tipping them out in
their thousands all over the floor,’ she says,
smiling. ‘Kind of mad, but it was really fun.’‘ W hen the
kids have
friends over,
I hear them
say, “Don’t
touch the
art please!”’
Above: vintage Louis
Vuitton trunks in Annie’s
bedroom. Below: satin
dress, £450, Kate Spade
New York. Leather
sandals, £525,
Rupert Sandersonspheres in vivid hues of ultramarine, viridian
and ochre arranged in a totem, most of
which, she tells me, are currently assembled
across the Atlantic for her first solo show
with the Timothy Taylor gallery in New
York. ‘We’ve also got this Tal R figure that
Victoria Miro gave to us as a wedding
present, and the kids are great with it – when
they have friends over I hear them say,
“Don’t touch the art please!”’
Annie’s own childhood was spent in
Chelsea, and she grew up surrounded by
creativity. ‘My mum was an interior deco-
rator and her life was making beautiful
rooms,’ she says. ‘I remember
being ushered around a lot
of antiques markets.’ Annie’s
desire to be a n a r tist emerged
when she was a student at
Westminster School. ‘I was
always talking in lessons and
throwing notes at people, you
know, “disruptive”, but when
it came to art class I was
completely focused. Thank -
fully, my parents weren’t strict
about me staying up late